“Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world.”

“Unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere.”

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

“An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.”

“The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”

“Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.”

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”