I will catch Christ with a greased worm, And when the Prince of Darkness stalks My bloodstream to its Stygian term . . . On water the Man-Fisher walks.

If youth is a defect, it is one we outgrow too soon.

In the end, there is no end.

We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering; If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train.

The world is absolutely out of control now and is not going to be saved by any reason or unreason.

Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat.

It is night, And it is vanity, and age Blackens the heart of Adam. Fear, The yellow chirper, beaks its cage.

History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had - it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes.

Most poetry is very formal, but when a modern poet is formal he gets more attention for it than old poets did.

I was overcome with an attack of pathological enthusiasm.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

You never know when someone will come into your life and change things, for good or bad, let them in. They don’t have to always stay but, human interaction is the pinnacle of life’s lessons.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

I'm trying to move an aircraft carrier here, I'm not just steering the speedboat.

It's called talent. I just have it. I can't explain it. You either have it or you don't.

We shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next door neighbors should hear that freeborn citizens dare not speak in the open.

For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion . . . and a man no longer believes he is a man.

I was pleased to see that Chief Justice [John] Roberts refused to prejudge issues or make promises in exchange for confirmation votes. We're all better off because of his principled stand.

The altruism of foresters can serve as a motto for humanity in general: "We reap what we have not sown. We sow what we do not reap."

If you don't have both of them working together in a complementary, cohesive way, you're not going to be successful.