For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality.

The Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age.

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.

The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else.

No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.

How to tell students what to look for without telling them what to see is the dilemma of teaching.

The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.

Epic poetry exhibits life in some great symbolic attitude. It cannot strictly be said to symbolize life itself, but always some manner of life.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always.

The epic poet collaborates with the spirit of his time in the composition of his work. That is, if he is successful; the time may refuse to work with him, but he may not refuse to work with his time.

If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering.

For such an advanced civilization as ours to be without images that are adequate to it is as serious a defect as being without memory.

I personally feel like, if you're watching a film about war, you should get a sense of what it's really like.

In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time. That hasn't been the case for teaching.

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don't deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things.

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you're just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric.

I never actually got around to taping conversations with my guests, but there are a lot of things you can learn from a man like Nixon.

Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.

I think maybe it's too bad that our society isn't further along and this is such a big deal. I think it's time...that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do.

I can't say that I've made the transition to movies.