“When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.”

I have no mystic faith in the people. I have in the individual.

How can I know what I think till I see what I say?

I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.

Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.

It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?

Only a writer who has the sense of evil can make goodness readable.

Human relations are impossible. When they are real they are uncomfortable, and when they are comfortable they are unreal. It was for the journey into solitude that the human soul was created.

The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

It is so difficult – at least, I find it difficult – to understand people who speak the truth.

But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable.

Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.

The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.

But it struck him that people are not really dead until they are felt to be dead. As long as there is some misunderstanding about them, they possess a sort of immortality.

Don’t begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.

… there are shadows because there are hills.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

One of the reasons I’ve felt so connected to poetry throughout the years is because it’s the only art form that has breath built into it. And I need that breath now. I need that breath so much. So, yes, it is a refuge for me. Absolutely.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

A lot of the questions that anyone would naturally have about their family, you’ll get much of the answers for, or at least hints to where it will go, in the future.

Poems have always been a place for questions for me. Not answers. And I have a lot of questions these days.

The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Think about the answers of the questions that have not yet been asked! When they are asked, you will have the answers ready!

To answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.