This be my pilgrimage and goal Daily to march and find The secret phrases of the soul, The evangels of the mind.

When you defile the pleasant streams, And the wild bird's abiding place, You massacre a million dreams, And cast your spittle in God's face

For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.

Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.

If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.

To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so.

In the corridors under tehre is nothing but sleep. And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep On moon-washed apples of wonder.

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.

Don't try and perfect yourself for one person. Wait for the one who loves your imperfections and make you feel perfect.

Close your eyes and you will see your dreams, open them and you will see obstacles.

You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat.

I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times.

The phrase surgical strike might be more acceptable if it were common practice to perform surgery with high explosives.

I would have rebelled against parental authority, no matter what. When I was 15, I started painting my face and making my own clothes.

If you're shipwrecked on an island with 10 million dollars and your wife has gold and diamonds, but there's no water, no arable land, no fish, you have nothing. Money is a 'nothing' thing.

Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

The dinner table is a lively debate, and everybody weighs in in a different way. I like that, though.

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.