The philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation and appearance could be followed.
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
Rilke wrote: ‘These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.
Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child’s world and thus a world event
I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.
One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort.
Would a bird build its nest if it did not have its instinct for confidence in the world?
For a knowledge of intimacy, localization in the spaces of our intimacy is more urgent than determination of dates.
So like a forgotten fire a childhood can always flare up again within us.
The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.
A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.
If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.