It Is Discouraging To Leave

Knowing Has Two Poles, And They Are Always Poles Apart: Carnal Knowing, The Laying On Of Hands, The Hanging Of The Fact By Head Or Heels, The Measurement Of Mass And Motion, The Calibration Of Brutal Blows, The Counting Of Supplies; And Spiritual Knowing, Invisibly Felt By The Inside Self, Who Is But A Fought-over Field Of Distraction, A Stage Where We Recite The Monotonous Monologue That Is Our Life, A Knowing Governed By Internal Tides, By Intimations, Motives, Resolutions, By Temptations, Secrecy, Shame, And Pride.

I Was Struck By The Way In Which Meanings Are Historically Attached To Words: It Is So Accidental, So Remote, So Twisted. A Word Is Like A Schoolgirl's Room--a Complete Mess--so The Great Thing Is To Make Out A Way Of Seeing It All As Ordered, As Right, As Inferred And Following.

If Death Itself Were To Die, Would It Have A Ghost, And Would The Ghost Of Death Visit The Dead In The Guise Of Someone Alive, If Only To Fright Them From Any Temptation To Return?

Philosophy Has A Great Sort Of Appeal In Terms Of An Artistic Or Aesthetic Organization Of Concepts. It's A Conceptual Art.

In General, I Would Think That At Present Prose Writers Are Much In Advance Of The Poets. In The Old Days, I Read More Poetry Than Prose, But Now It Is In Prose Where You Find Things Being Put Together Well, Where There Is Great Ambition, And Equal Talent. Poets Have Gotten So Careless, It Is A Disgrace. You Can’t Pick Up A Page. All The Words Slide Off.