When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand.

...discovering Antarctica, its penguin kings and icy spires...

Yule—Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner—of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.

Omissions are not accidents.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of fabric is governed by gravity.

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine.

When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment.

I must fight Til I have conquered In myself what causes war

Appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

Hate-hardened heart, O heart of iron, iron is iron till it is rust. There never was a war that was not inward;

... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ... ... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is on the other hand genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

... we do not admire what we cannot understand.

Dürer would have seen a reason for living in a town like this.

I wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this time.

When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

We don't like flowers that do not wilt; they must die, and nine she-camel hairs aid memory.

We prove, we do not explain, our birth,

A symbol from the first, of mastery, experiments such as Hippocrates made and substituted for vague speculation stayed the ravages of plague.

Poetry, that is to say the poetic, is a primal necessity.

One detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one's detachment.

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

The enslaver is enslaved, the hater, harmed.

We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

Blessed the geniuses who know / that egomania is not a duty.

Honesty - however dangerous - should be as valuable as radium it seems to me ...

Maine should be pleased that its animal is not a waverer, and rather than fight, lets the primed quill fall. Shallow oppressor, intruder, insister, you have found a resister.

You are not male nor female, but a plan deep-set within the heart of man.

He who gives quickly gives twice / in nothing so much as in a letter.

Hindered characters / seldom have mothers / in Irish stories, but they all have grandmothers.

Wolf's wool is the best of wool, / but it cannot be sheared because / the wolf will not comply.

Poetry ... ... a place for the genuine, Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise

I, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.

Everything I have written is the result of reading or of interest in people.

To wear the arctic fox you have to kill it.

[The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion.

Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.

Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years.

What is our innocence, What is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.

As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

The mind is an enchanting thing is an enchanted thing, like the glaze on a katydid-wing subdivided by sun till the nettings are legion.

Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible.

The mind is an enchanting thing.

The sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

Unconfusion submits its confusion to proof; it's not a Herod's oath that cannot change.

I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false.

I'm troubled. I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

When we think we don't like art it is because it is artificial art.

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.