“Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.”

“many pass for saints on earth whose souls are in hell.”

“She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”

“Serpents, thirst, burning-sand – all are welcomed by the brave; endurance finds pleasure in hardship; virtue rejoices when it pays dear for its existence.”
Serpens, sitis, ardor harenae dulcia virtuti; gaudet patientia duris; laetius est, quotiens magno sibi constat, honestum.

“Many Jews in the Communist conspiracy. Chambers and Hiss were the only non-Jews. Many thought that Hiss was. He could have been a half. Every other one was a Jew — and it raised hell for us. But in this case, I hope to God he's not a Jew.”

“No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.”

“Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.”

“The human voice is the organ of the soul.”

“One of the enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of religious faith.”

“Primroses; salutations; the miry skull
of a half-eaten ram; vicious wonds in earth
opening. What seraphs are afoot.”