“To break the pentameter, that was the first heaven.”

Our own consciousness is incapable of having produce the universe. God, therefore, exists. That is to say, there is no reason for not applying the term God, Theos, to the intimate essence.

What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely.

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

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

The what is so much more important than how.

The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.

In verse one can take any damn constant one likes, one can alliterate, or assone, or rhyme, or quant, or smack, only one MUST leave the other elements irregular.

Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap.

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.

The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.

Rhythm is form cut into time.

I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn’t irascible.

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Poets who are not interested in music are, or become, bad poets.

Poetry must be as well written as prose.

Poetry is a language pared down to its essentials.

If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.

It’s hard to really articulate what the parameters are that make one song parody-able and another song not, but if I can come up with a good enough idea for it, I go for it, and if not, then I have to move on.

It sounded too contrived and having to follow devised parameters to create art.

Box office figures are not something that can decide the success of a film on its own, but they are one of the many yardsticks that help me measure how well a film has been received.