She was mine before she was yours.
There is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny.
But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell.
No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.
How to tell students what to look for without telling them what to see is the dilemma of teaching.
It is more difficult to keep the attention of hearers than of readers.
If epic poetry is a definite species, the sagas do not fall within it.
I was trundling around with my inadequacies, and inner pain and loneliness. I yearned, desperately, to be something. I yearned to get out from where I was. . . some deep discontent within myself, actually some deep dislike of myself.
Not the stars, not the farthest solar systems, not the millions of different species of animal life, but the child is the greatest of God's creations.
I abominate any organization that denies cats are people!
We may make mistakes-but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.