Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
War begins like a pretty girl with whom every man wants to flirt and ends like an ugly old woman whose visitors suffer and weep.
Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
I can write a poem in 10 minutes. I like writing songs; I can write songs in 5 or 10 minutes. My concentration seems very short.
I was a controversial figure on my reservation when I was a kid. I was mouthy and opinionated and arrogant. Nothing has changed.
The purest love is the one between parents and their children. The rest may be more elevated, but never as deep or long-lasting.
The point is, you have an ethnic heritage and you have a human heritage. Your human heritage includes everything of human value.
In reading, a lonely quiet concert is given to our minds; all our mental faculties will be present in this symphonic exaltation.
Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74)
I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give.
I am afraid. I am not solid, but hollow. I feel behind my eyes a numb, paralyzed cavern, a pit of hell, a mimicking nothingness.
I drink sherry and wine by myself because I like it and I get the sensuous feeling of indulgence...luxury, bliss, erotic-tinged.
The reason I haven't been writing in this book for so long is partly that I haven't had one decent coherent thought to put down.
The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of stories, you might still be alive when you hit bottom.
I have felt great advances in my poetry, the main one being a growing victory over word nuances and a superfluity of adjectives.
So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
He stood beside a cottage lone And listened to a lute, One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone, And the nightingale was mute.
Look, you're either a Zionist or an anti-Zionist: there's no middle way. Everyone who supports the state of Israel is a Zionist.
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together is enough.
In a world of universal poverty The philosophers alone will be fat Against the autumn winds In an autumn that will be perpetual.
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.
Invention depends altogether upon execution or organization; as that is right or wrong so is the invention perfect or imperfect.
I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate Built in Jerusalem's wall.
Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.
Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.
Fair and foul are near of kin And fair needs foul," I cried. "My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied."
The woods of Arcady are dead, And over is their antique joy; Of old the world on dreaming fed Gray Truth is now her painted toy.
I am out of humanity's reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.
But poverty, with most who whimper forth Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe; The effect of laziness, or sottish write.
Our cares are the mothers, not only of our charities And virtues, but of our best joys and most cheering and enduring pleasures.
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."
Suit the action to the word : the word to the action : with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair, what doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
Value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer.
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is slicked o'er with the pale cast of thought
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling.
I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
But to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom, More honored in the breach than the observance.
Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity, made peace of enmity, fair love of hate, between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!