Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself.

When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.

History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

All that you can imagine you already know.

So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself

All the posters on the walls All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.

Magic or nature, they were much the same thing to Magnus.

Rich or poor it’s nice to have money

What is failure to a person who is not afraid to learn from it and try again?

Only by emptying ourselves out before God will we find fullness within ourselves.

I stayed in show business to pay for my animal business.

You're not lost in a storm, Marilyn. You are the storm!

There is a strength in the even of very sorry men

I'm not a great piano player.

I would say that God custom designed my weaknesses. I am not making God responsible for my sins.

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing , religious people of his day.