Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John.
In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will.
I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.
I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies.
Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time, Be crushed by the spirit of light.
At the moment of childbirth, every woman has the same aura of isolation, as though she were abandoned, alone.
As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.
Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.
As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.
Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.
As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.
What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
You fall into my arms. You are the good gift of destruction's path, When life sickens more than disease. And boldness is the root of beauty. Which draws us together.
What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.
They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.