“Admitting you are a nature poet, nowadays, may make you seem something of a fool!”

“A poet is not something you become; a poet is something you are.”

“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”

“To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.”

“For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”

“You think that's the solution to everything, don't you, Bane? Drinking and dancing and making love… but I tell you this, something is coming, and we'd be fools to ignore it."
"When have I ever claimed not to be a fool?”

“People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them”

“Death […] people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world.”

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

“What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?”