Stephen Spender

When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

You must live through the time that everything hurts.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

Cult simply an extension of the idea that everyones supreme aim in life is self fulfillment and happiness and that one is entitled to wreck marriage children and certainly ones health and sanity in pursuit of this.

Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.