We are born in ignorance, we die in ignorance, but maybe sometimes we learn something important and pass it along to others before we die. Or we writ… - Greg Bear

Poetry is dead and buried in a world of growing LitVid and illiteracy, vidiocy I’ve heard it called. Being dead, poetry has enormous freedom; being ignored, it can blossom like a rose in a manure heap. Poetry is risen. Poetry is the messiah of literature but the angel has not yet told anybody it is risen.

We were innocent and did not know that the price of freedom—of individuality—is attention to politics, careful planning, careful organization; philosophy is no more a barrier against political disaster than it is against plague.

2. “We must know our enemy, at least a little.”
“That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively.
“Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”