Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.

The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.

I swear that girl was born with a pen in her hand, the moon in her hair, and stars in her soul.

Isn't a kid alive who doesn't dream about rewarding her folks, or punishing them.

In the end, it was the secrets that held me hostage and fuelled my depression, but, once released, emancipation - from fear, shame, guilt and judgement - was finally possible.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.

I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.

You know the law, Dresden." "He who kills the cheer springs for beer," chanted the rest of the table.

Nothing dumb ever starts out stupid.

I should like the whole race of nurses to be abolished: children should be with their mother as much as possible, in my opinion.

I am here and I am safe and I am sick of it.