One of the most puzzling things about a novel is that “the way it really was” half the time is, and half the time isn’t, the way it ought to be in th… - Randall Jarrell

If poetry were nothing but texture, [Dylan] Thomas would be as good as any poet alive. The what of his poems is hardly essential to their success, and the best and most brilliantly written pieces usually say less than the worst.

...the really damned not only like Hell, they feel loyal to it...

What to leave out is the first thing the artist has to decide; a painter who “held the mirror up to nature” would spend his life on the leaves of one landscape. The work of art’s fluctuating and idiosyncratic threshold of attention — the great things disregarded, the small things seized and dwelt on — is as much of a signature as anything in it.