We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.

So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.

The Spring I seek is in a new face only.

Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.

Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.

At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.

Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.

Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.

The mission for the day is to encourage students to think beyond traditional career opportunities, prepare for future careers and entrance into the workplace.

I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.

Men expect too much, do too little.

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.

Poets, in their way, are practical men; they are interested in results.

Experience means conflict, our natures being what they are, and conflict means drama.

A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history; it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three; never less than all.

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for.

I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry; all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.

The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!

The dusk runs down the lane driven like hail Far off a precise whistle is escheat To the dark and then the towering weak and pale.

There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet.

The dreary flies lazy and casual Stick to the ceiling buzz along the wall. O heart the spider shuffles from the mould Weaving between the pinks and grapes his pall.

I'm famous for being nicer to my fans than anyone on the face of the Earth because I figure a) They pay my salary, and b) It's probably like a big moment in your life to meet somebody so I would say, just come on up.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it's so much fun.

I don't think there are any footsteps to be walked in. No one else has taken things that you can buy at the grocery store and put them together. I hope that I have a career as long as Julia Child.

If I set off to do something, why not do it properly? Otherwise, what's the point?

All these directors who do different locations forget that one room can be shot from a million different angles and a million different ways. When I direct a movie, I'm going to use that.

I make records with an open mind, I always have.

I've always looked to other women for inspiration and kicks. When a woman stands up and does her thing, it never ceases to excite and inspire me.

People don't always do what they say they're going to do.

With any story I write, I could actually write it from three or four different perspectives, which would end with a completely different moral at the end.

If you're the CEO of a publicly traded company, you're worried about quarterly returns.

Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.

I'm invested in about 13 private companies. I've advised probably another 50 private companies.

I can't cut out a piece of cloth and make a lovely dress, but I can mend tears in shirts and sew on buttons.

A man must pay the fiddler, in my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra often had to be subsidized.

Know that there is so much more to you than your body. It's not just about perfecting the steps; you must trust your instincts to tell deep, emotional stories through the steps that you are performing.

I dont think quantity time is as special as quality time with your family.

Some persons talk simply because they think sound is more manageable than silence.

The four most dangerous words in investing are: this time it's different.

Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery; we are not our minds either.