“I suppose I may claim to be both father and mother of such bairns as I produce; and certainly I am ever expectant that they have the breath of life in them.”

Playfully imagines his writings as children whose life must continue beyond him · Diary, 1943

• Art
• Mortality
• Poetry

“I suppose the unconscious thought expressing itself in such a display of animal boisterousness is: 'Look, Death, look; here is somebody alive and very much alive.”

Interprets youthful exuberance as an instinctive challenge to mortality · Diary, 1939

• Death
• Joy
• Memory

“I have stopped writing poetry since more than a year, I tell my friends, because the writing of poetry seems to me to be a dishonest occupation, a compromise, a deception.”

Records a period of profound doubt about the moral value of poetic activity · Diary, 1937

• Art
• Poetry
• Truth