Quotes from Mark Van Doren

It is astonishing how few stories have been told perfectly.

Great periods of poetry begin with an inordinate self-consciousness, and only gradually attain to the natural.

Nothing stays not even change, That can grow tired of it's own name; The very thought too much for it. Somewhere in air a stillness is, So far, so thin- But let it alone. Whoever we are it is not for us

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

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.