“where the dead walked and the living were made of cardboard.”

“The eyes of this dead lady speak to meFor here was love, was not to be drowned out.And here desire, not to be kissed away.The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.”

“Song in the Manner of Housman" O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera.... London is a woeful place, Shropshire is much pleasanter. Then let us smile a little space Upon fond nature's morbid grace. Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera....”

“And the good writer chooses his words for their 'meaning', but that meaning is not a a set, cut-off thing like the move of knight or pawn on a chess-board. It comes up with roots, with associations, with how and where the word is familiarly used, or where it has been used brilliantly or memorably.”

“I have tried to write ParadiseDo not moveLet the wind speakthat is paradise.Let the Gods forgive what Ihave madeLet those I love try to forgivewhat I have made.”

“No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.”

“The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, in remeasurements he himself has made, is merely an unreliable critic. He is not a measurer but a repeater of other men's results. KRINO, to pick out for oneself, to choose. That's what the word means.”