There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman.

On the stem of memory imaginations blossom.

We are not alone in our loneliness, others have been here and known griefs we thought our special own.

God cannot catch us. Unless we stay in the unconscious room. Of our hearts.

A sweeping statement is the only statement worth listening to. The critic without faith gives balanced opinions, usually about second-rate writers.

Macmillan's rejection had left him very downcast... Patrick Swift was invited to peruse the contents and decided that the poems should be published.

It often occurs to me that we love most what makes us miserable. In my opinion the damned are damned because they enjoy being damned.

I dabbled in verse and it became my life

A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men.

Malice is only another name for mediocrity.

What appears in newspapers is often new but seldom true.

Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's liberation...none was more alarming than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.

I don't want to have these burdens. But I can't bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite all the work, I like being in control of my own life.

Let the purity and innocence of a child be your one and only religion!

Sometimes painful things can teach us lessons that we didn't think we needed to know.

The crushing, pitiful, and frequently just plain risible pathos of an unsuccessful actor/performer's life is well charted.

The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.

I had just turned 20, and Jackie told me the only way to be successful at anything was to go out and do it. He said baseball was a game you played every day, not once a week.

...the first sign of civilization is always trash.

Why are you smiling?' 'I'm relieved,' I said honestly. 'I was worried I'd given myself cadmium poisoning, or I had some mysterious disease. This is just someone trying to kill me.

I put all my eggs in one basket and invested in property. I didn't do anything internationally - it was all in Ireland.