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.

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.

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.

That is to say, epic poetry has been invented many times and independently; but, as the needs which prompted the invention have been broadly similar, so the invention itself has been.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

There's a lot of processed food in America and I know that can make some tourists who're used to fresh food feel sick.

Israel means war and destruction and we Americans are behind this war and I am ashamed of being American.

Kinsey thought that Freud in his own way was as dangerous as the Catholic Church.

It's like learning a language; you can't speak a language fluently until you find out who you are in that language, and that has as much to do with your body as it does with vocabulary and grammar.

I'm self-centered, inconsiderate, and what was the third adjective? Oh, yes, and I have this infantile fantasy that one day I'll amount to something as an actress.

Only by knowledge of that which is not thyself, shall thyself be learned.

I have to say that I've always believed perfectionism is more of a disease than a quality. I do try to go with the flow but I can't let go.

I know sometimes I need to be more like M.J., but M.J. also needs to be more like me. He needs to be the player he is with more my mentality.

You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew.