“What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins.”
Skyline: A Reporter's Reminiscence of the 1920s (1961); as cited by Jonathon Green (1988) Says who?: a guide to the quotations of the century. p. 308
"Still Life with a Balloon"
Poems New and Collected (1998), Calling Out to Yeti (1957)
“What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins.”
Skyline: A Reporter's Reminiscence of the 1920s (1961); as cited by Jonathon Green (1988) Says who?: a guide to the quotations of the century. p. 308
“I kidnap children from bathrooms
I eat the children for breakfast
They were so young
Yum Yum Yum”
The Chanukah Song.
“You see much more of your children once they leave home.”
Quoted in Carolyn Warner, The Last Word, ch. 16 (1992)
(3 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: I want to build vast machines of light and darkness, intricate mechanisms within mechanisms, a progression of gears and cogs and pistons each working to its own end as well as that of the Greater Device. That's what I see in my head. But, too often, I sense that many readers want nothing more complex or challenging than wind-up toys. It's dispiriting.
The Balloon Of The Mind http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1595/
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
(zh-TW) 少小離家老大回,鄉音無改鬢毛衰。
兒童相見不相識,笑問客從何處來。
"Coming Home" (《回乡偶书》) in Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty, trans. Witter Bynner
“Come in, dear wind, and be our guest
You too have neither home nor rest.”
"Christmas legend" [Weinachtslegende] (1923) Berliner Börsen-Courier (25 December 1924); trans in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 100
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)
“Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.”
“Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes.”
"Night Recconaissance" Live (2006)
Lyrics