I simply had to get there. - Stephen Spender

...Tolstoy's characters seem to come forward to meet you, very conscious of the impression they are making on one another and on the reader.

I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

And if this I were destroyed, The image shattered, My perceived, rent world would fly In an explosion of final judgement To the ends of the sky, The colour in the iris of the eye. Opening, my eyes say 'Let there be light', Closing, they shut me in a coffin.