“For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

“So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres-Trying to use words, and every attemptIs a wholy new start, and a different kind of failureBecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in whichOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each ventureIs a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,With shabby equipment always deterioratingIn the general mess of imprecision of feeling,Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquerBy strength and submission, has already been discoveredOnce or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hopeTo emulate - but there is no competition -There is only the fight to recover what has been lostAnd found and lost again and again: and now, under conditionsThat seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

“And right action is freedom from past and future also.For most of us, this is the aim never to be realized. Who are only undefeated because we have gone on trying. "The Dry Salvages”

“After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late What’s not believed in, or if still believed, In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”

“Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit.”

“If Hell is where nothing connects, then being in the field of English must be the key to heaven's door! We are in the business of finding connections--within texts, between texts and contexts, between texts and ourselves, between our readings and the readings of other interpreters.”

“The dripping blood our only drink,The bloody flesh our only food:In spite of which we like to thinkThat we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.”