All songs are living ghosts. And long for a living voice

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending that always seems about to give in something that will not acknowledge conclusion insists that we forever begin.

A writer is not interested in explaining reality, he’s only interested in capturing it.

Poetry is the ultimate democracy.

If you want to serve the age, betray it.

I know it does not matter that I do not understand.

You can be the most productive person in your area of your calling if you can just isolate yourself and learn to convert your time into products.

I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.

I wanted to wash away our past misgivings in those tears that would run from our eyes and weave a new start by folding her in my arms.I wanted to, but I did not!

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.

My art recognizes the human place, the human context - especially in Britain, which is a landscape so worked by people for thousands of years, written, deeply ingrained with the presence of people.

[Written in 1901:] Nothing has been so deplorable for countries as centralization. I am afraid when I see Germany grow so powerful, and centralizing in Berlin; it is the beginning of the end!

Every dog is allowed one bite, but a different view is taken of a dog that goes on biting all the time. He may not get his licence returned when it falls due.

The first fiction I ever wrote was short stories. I was writing short stories in my late teens and early twenties, and I think it's how you teach yourself to write.

What's happened recently in Pakistan, India and Kuwait only goes to show that it's futile to imitate Western democracy. They've ended up exactly where they started.

The mission of the artist in an over-technologi zed society, is to call the old magic back to life.