“I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different.” — T. S. Eliot

All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords.

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.