“Insisting that his writing did not offer a philosophy of life, Hardy claims that each poem was an ‘impression’, intensely subjective and evanescent.”

“I like to quote the words of Kierkegaard, that 'life ia a poem that we are able to write ourselves; but a Christian lets God write his life's poem.”

“Life's like usWe find it- and then the deathA poem for a goodbye?Why insist?”

“The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers--has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.”

“In all his life - past, present and future - Hardy knew he would never find another person that set his body, his heart and his soul on fire the way that Miracle did.”

“A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression”