The sea was angry that day my friend, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.

Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.

I'm alive today, therefore I'm just as much a part of our time as everybody else. The times will just have to enlarge themselves to make room for me, won't they, and for everybody else.

Who is this that comes in grandeur, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ.

Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

Life may be treacherous, but you can always depend on death.

The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.

I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.

Why does my muse only speak when she is uhnhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.

People who are always praising the past And especially the time of faith as best Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.

Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development. Equally, he has an infinite capacity for self-destruction.

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.

The worst passion we mortals cherish is the desire to possess. Even when we know that our final destination is a hole not more than three feet square, we have the strongest craving

The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.

When an artist stopped being a child, he would stop being an artist.

Obviously, there is pleasure in the execution of any sort of art, and using language, as Nabokov felt also, is an exquisite process.

We are the same, you and I. We are images of light.

Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.

How unfair the fate which ordains that those who have the least should be always adding to the treasury of the wealthy.

One day's life of a lion is preferable to hundred years of a jackal.