"What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why."

--

Source : allen tate (1953). “the man of letters in the modern world”

Allen Tate

“But the same intelligence compels Germany to practise the same policy.”
“This ship is built to fight. You had better know how.”
“If the markets had behaved badly, that would obviously add to people's sense of alarm... but there has been a lot of reassurance coming, particularly in the way the Brits handled all this. There seems to be no great fear that something like that is going to happen here.”
“Beautiful thoughts flit across the brain, like butterflies in the sun's rays, and are as difficult to capture.”
“The bigger the trophy, the more trivial the contest.”
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”
“Are you saying we shouldn't be prepared? And I'm asking you that right now, Daniel. ... Why would you be against people being able not only to be prepared to have food and water for their friends, but to defend themselves from looters and some of these degradation of society that happen in these crises?”
“I think of the Ramones when I think of music that can save your life, but I'm not so sure about a band like Fall Out Boy who appears to make music in vein or that, at least, doesn't sound like something they would die for.”

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