“It is outrageous that a strictly abstemious reader should sit in judgement on a poet a little drunk.”

“Not every poet is a great reader of his own work.”

“As far as I'm concerned the only thing to do is sit in a room and get drunk”

“The Author to the Reader
I’ve read that Luther said (it’s come to me
So often that I’ve made it into meter):
And even if the world should end tomorrow
I still would plant my little apple-tree.
Here, reader, is my little apple-tree.”

“In the old romanticism the poem was an uncommon effect of common experience on the poet. All interest in the poem centred in this mysterious capacity of the poet for overfeeling, for being overaffected. In Poe the old romanticism ended and the new romanticism began. That is, the interest was broadened to include the reader: the end of the poem was pushed ahead a stage, from the poet to the reader. The uncommon effect of experience on the poet became merely incidental to the uncommon effect which he might have on the reader. Mystery was replaced by science; inspiration by psychology.”

“If the pages of this book contain some successful verse, the reader must excuse me the discourtesy of having usurped it first. Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance that you should be the reader of these exercises and I their author.”

“One should always be drunk. That's all that matters… But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”

“I should have drunk more champagne.”

“But metre itself implies a passion, i. e. a state of excitement, both in the Poet's mind, & is expected in that of the Reader.”