“When a Cat adopts you, there is nothing to be done about it except to put up with it and wait until the wind changes.”

A playful observation on the independence of cats and the people they choose · Letter to Polly Tandy, 1937

• Joy
• Nature

“The rudiment of criticism is the ability to select a good poem and reject a bad poem; and its most severe test is of its ability to select a good new poem.”

Defining criticism fundamentally as the exercise of sound literary judgement · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

• Art
• Poetry

“Poetry begins, I dare say, with a savage beating a drum in the jungle, and it retains that essential of percussion and rhythm.”

Locating the origins of poetry in rhythm and bodily sound · Lecture series, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

• Music
• Poetry