“ The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn. Longfellow… Helen Bevington
“ I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this:… John Berryman
“ It is always the savage lads, with their love of excitement, who head the riot - reckless to what bloodshed it may lead. Elizabeth Gaskell
“ The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. William Blake
“ Of cats' first disobedience, and the heightOf that forbidden tree whose doom'd ascentBrought man into the world to help us downAnd made us subject to his moods and whims,For though we may have knock'd… Henry N. Beard
“ I saw a lot of men die there. Most men. Do you know what killed them?”…”Despair,” said Finney. “They believed themselves to be prisoners. I lived with those men, ate the same maggot-infested food, sle… Louise Penny
“ All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed in verse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not really created: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathers roun… Hilaire Belloc
“ The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with bea… W.B. Yeats
“ So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosedIn serpent, inmate bad! and toward EveAddressed his way: not with indented wave,Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear,Circular base of rising folds, tha… John Milton
“ What kind of dark, twisted mind preys on young women? I think it was Poe that said the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical thing in the universe, and if that was true… I was John Milton. Bruce Crown
“ Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of meeAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all th’ Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who sto… John Milton
“ Father, I do acknowledge and confessThat I this honor, I this pomp have broughtTo Dagon, and advanc’d his praises highamong the Heathen round; to God have broughtDishonor, obloquy, and op’d the mouths… John Milton
“ For books are not absolutely dead things, but... do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously produ… John Milton
