Words worth keeping

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.

Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I've tasted of desire,I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twiceI think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –over and over announcing your placein the family of things.

No. I can survive well enough on my own— if given the proper reading material.

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.