“If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.”

“He was a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the molding he had received at the hands of society. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast - a human beast, it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterized as carnivorous.”

“If a man is in the forest and there is no woman around, is he still wrong?”

“If you dissect a bird / to diagram the tongue, / you'll cut the chord / articulating song.”

“He had been taught that bread unshared is bread unblessed when someone else is hungry, whether man or beast, friend or stranger.”

“Poets find their voices when they articulate the wishes of the dead, especially those slain as sacrificial talismans to a larger frame of existence.”