Yeats was 18th-century oratory, almost.

The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost.

If you go into an underground train in London - probably anywhere, but chiefly in London - there's that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don't exchange many pleasantries.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.