August 3, 2015

Today is the birthday of the following people:

Hayden Carruth (1921 – 2008):

“A poem is not an expression, nor

it is an object. Yet it somewhat

partakes of both. What a poem is

Is never to be known, for which I

have learned to be grateful.”

and

“Why speak of the use

of poetry? Poetry

is what uses us.”

P.D. James (1920 - 2014):

“Time didn't heal, but it anesthetized. The human mind could only feel so much.”

and

“Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.”

and

“Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it.”

and

“Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.”

Leon Uris (1924 – 2003):

“Love can't mature in one room. It has to come out of the full sharing of everything: joys, aspirations, downfalls, all of it. That's the only real path to love.”

Steven Millhauser (1943 - ):

“All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.”

and

“I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.”