“Teddy looked at him directly for the first time.Are you a poet?' he asked.A poet?' Nicholson said. 'Lord, no. Alas, no. Why do you ask?'I don't know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.' "- Teddy and Nicholson in "Teddy" (Nine Stories)”

“Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.”

“You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden, referred to in the Bible?' he asked. 'You know what was in that apple? Logic. Logic and intellectual stuff. That was all that was in it. So—this is my point—what you have to do is vomit it up if you want to see things as they really are....'The trouble is,' Teddy said, 'most people don't want to see things the way they are. They don't even want to stop getting born and dying all the time, instead of stopping and staying with God, where it's really nice.' He reflected. 'I never saw such a bunch of apple-eaters,' he said. He shook his head.”

“They're not. That's partly what's so awful. I mean they're not real poets. They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.”

“You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym?' he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. 'Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he'd have a very, very bad night's sleep, because he's very fond of that dog. But when he woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He'd know it was only a dream.'Nicholson nodded. 'What's the point exactly?'The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same thing. Only he wouldn't know it. I mean he wouldn't wake up till he died himself.”

“I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all, Teddy said. It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.”

“They're just people that write poems that get published and anthologized all over the place but they're not poets.”