“Suffering is a real purification, and the worst thing I have always had to say against Christian Science is that it wilfully avoided suffering.”

Reflecting on suffering as an element in emotional and spiritual understanding · Letter to his mother, 21 December 1923

• Despair
• Faith
• Hope

“One must be drenched in words, literally soaked with them to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.”

On the deep immersion in language required before poetic expression becomes instinctive · Letter to Gorham Munson, 26 November 1921

• Art
• Poetry

“Language has built towers and bridges, but itself is inevitably as fluid as always.”

Recognising both the constructive power and continual changeability of language · General Aims and Theories, 1925

• Art
• Poetry