“You can’t write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.”

Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.

One must live well to know what living is.

For the task assigned them Men aren’t smart enough or sly Any rogue can blind them With a clever lie.

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.

Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.

People cannot remain good unless good is expected of them.

In the contradiction lies the hope.

One cannot be arraigned for declaring a war, which every ruler has to do once in a while, but only for running a war badly.

The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions.

What’s a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other.

Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.

Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty Often have a share in their misfortunes.

The storm that bends the birch trees Is held to be violent But how about the storm That bends the backs of the roadworkers?

Grub first, then ethics.

We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.

Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell!

Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.

That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.

In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.

I always feel like a tiger gone jump out of my woods.

Autumn nights carry the most colourful dreams through the empty woods.