The Remarkable Thing About Shakespeare Is That

I Believe That Every English Poet Should Read The English Classics, Master The Rules Of Grammar Before He Attempts To Bend Or Break Them, Travel Abroad, Experience The Horrors Of Sordid Passion, And - If He Is Lucky Enough - Know The Love Of An Honest Woman.

If I Were A Young Man With My Bones Full Of Marrow, Oh, If I Were A Bold Young Man Straight As An Arrow, I'd Store Up No Virtue For Heaven's Distant Plain, I'd Live At Ease As I Did Please And Sin Once Again.

Hardly One Soldier In A Hundred Was Inspired By Religious Feeling Of Even The Crudest Kind. It Would Have Been Difficult To Remain Religious In The Trenches Even If One Had Survived The Irreligion Of The Training Battalion At Home.

If I Thought That Any Poem Of Mine Could Have Been Written By Anyone Else, Either A Contemporary Or A Forerunner, I Should Suppress It With A Blush; And I Should Do The Same If I Ever Found I Were Imitating Myself. Every Poem Should Be New, Unexpected, Inimitable, And Incapable Of Being Parodied.

Poetry Is No More A Narcotic Than A Stimulant; It Is A Universal Bittersweet Mixture For All Possible Household Emergencies And Its Action Varies Accordingly As It Is Taken In A Wineglass Or A Tablespoon, Inhaled, Gargled Or Rubbed On The Chest By Hard Fingers Covered With Rings.