"The great poem must have the stamp..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of my life; I mean that I had some.”

“The most alive is the wildest.”

“Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log.”

“every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works, yet we require critics to explain the one and biographers to expound the other. That time hangs heavy on people's hands is the only explanation of the monstrous growth.”

“If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones... After all, there are better ways to starve to death.”

“I see a correlation between short stories and songs, because of their length and for what they're meant to evoke. Combine certain words with melodies and it all becomes very moving.”

“The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to teach us to despise all he has done.”

“For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew. I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew.”

“We can't separate our humanity from our poetry.”