I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

I’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

If literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we’re probably not going to see.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

I don’t understand what it’s all about or what’s worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

I have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

I spend a lot of time reading.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.

I bear a charmed life.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

I read poetry to save time.

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.