Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

Who included me among the ranks of the human race?

A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny.

The concept of historical necessity is the product of rational thought and arrived in Russia by the Western route. The idea of the noble savage, of an inherently good human nature hampered by bad institutions, of the ideal state, of social justice and so forth - none of these originated or blossomed on the banks of the Volga.

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.

[Robert] Frost's triumph was not being at John Kennedy's inauguration ceremony, but the day when he put the last period on "West-Running Brook."