Mark Van Doren Quotes

When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

The job of the poet is to render the world – to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.

Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.