I think there are perhaps two ways in which one can begin.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

I think it was lucky that during most of the work on the Odyssey I lived on Homer's sea in houses that were, in one case, shaken by the impact of the Mediterranean winter storms on the rocks below.

Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most discouragement possible.

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.

Yes, and there were changes of light on landscapes and changes of direction of the wind and the force of the wind and weather. That whole scene is too important in Homer to neglect.

In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.

The question is how to bring a work of imagination out of one language that was just as taken-for-granted by the persons who used it as our language is by ourselves. Nothing strange about it.

I think that everyone who took part has always been grateful for it.

Of course the other and more serious way in which it all happens is that one finds in poems and language some quality one appropriates for oneself and wishes to reproduce.

Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.

I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.

Nowhere probably is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a churchyard - both as regards the monuments and the inscriptions. Scarcely a word of true poetry anywhere.

We've been seeing some good things from Randy. We're starting to see that Randy Johnson attitude that we've been looking forward to seeing.

We show no relish for reconfiguring the relationship between the state, the market and society. The world is on the turn, yet we do not seem equal to the challenge.

If 13 is unlucky, then 12 and 14 are guilty by association.

Fear is the most costly of all the human emotions, even though most fears have no foundation in fact.

Then come and as we lay, beside this sleepy glade, there I will sing to you my Longfellow serenade.

New York exists for me. Not me for it.

I have always respected education, which is why I actually went back secretly and taught school for eight years.