“I shall state my thesis plain. The first poets were gods. Poetry began with the bicameral mind.”

“Every god is a jealous god after the breakdown of the bicameral mind.”

“I believe that only poetry counts… A great novelist is first of all a great poet.”

“Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.”

“The vestiges of the bicameral mind do not exist in any empty psychological space.”

“Romantic poetry … recognizes as its first commandment that the will of the poet can tolerate no law above itself.”

“but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.”

“My meaning (dear Mother) is in these sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in poetry, shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory.”

“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order.”

“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.”