Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness W.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. W.

At a reading in 1968, the poet Marianne Moore solicited questions from the audience and someone asked, “What words of advice, if any, would you give to a beginning poet who hates words?” The 81-year-old Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner pondered for a moment and then replied, “That may be very auspicious. Words are a very great trap.” Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it.

Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man.

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him. W.

By the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few.

Comedy appeals to the collective mind of the audience and this grows fatigued; while farce appeals to a more robust organ, their collective belly.

Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers. W.