The cliche is dead poetry. English, being the language of an imaginative race, abounds in cliches, so that English literature is always in danger of being poisoned by its own secretions.

The cliche is dead poetry.

I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know that it is money.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.