British-American poet and author, known for his poetry and literary criticism

Drama is based on the Mistake. I think someone is my friend when he really is my enemy, that I am free to marry a woman when in fact she is my mother, that this person is a chambermaid when it is a young nobleman in disguise, that this well-dressed young man is rich when he is really a penniless adventurer, or that if I do this such and such a result will follow when in fact it results in something very different. All good drama has two movements, first the making of the mistake, then the discovery that it was a mistake.

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.

The true men of action in our time those who transform the world are not the politicians and statesmen but the scientists. Unfortunately poetry cannot celebrate them because their deeds are concerned with things, not persons, and are therefore speechless. When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.

Poetry makes nothing happen.

We must love one another or die

Quand les mots perdent leur signification, la force physique prend le relais.

I will love you forever swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday - Is that still as easy?

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom.

Say this city has ten million souls,Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me.