“One thing poetry teaches us, if anything, is that everything is connected…There is so much history that we have not validated.”

The How and Why of Fitting Things Together

[1998, Unweaving the Rainbow, London, Allen Lane, 9780713992144, 18827466M, Preface]
Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)

Recreation (1919)
Context: There is much poetry for which most of us do not care, but with a little trouble when we are young we may find one or two poets whose poetry, if we get to know it well, will mean very much to us and become part of ourselves... The love for such poetry which comes to us when we are young will not disappear as we get older; it will remain in us, becoming an intimate part of our own being, and will be an assured source of strength, consolation, and delight.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Speech to the House of Commons (8 June 1982) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/60882a.htm
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Context: From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.... If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 17, “Dead Voices” (p. 170)

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)