“I don't think I am a falcon. I think I am a life with a broken wing. I know it. But read that poem—Let no charitable hope. Now you know, red lizard.”

She answers a lover's flattering comparison by pointing him to her own unsparing self-portrait · Letter to William Rose Benét

• Identity
• Poetry
• Self Knowledge

“Yes, it would be a pity that a first-rate poet should be turned into a second-rate poet by marrying a third-rate poet.”

A dry verdict on her match with William Rose Benét, delivered with what Wilson called her harsh laugh · Conversation, reported by Edmund Wilson

• Marriage
• Poets
• Wit

“Of pure Pennsylvania stock.”

She corrected the New Jersey birthplace with family loyalty to Pennsylvania lineage · Spoken protest, as often reported

• America
• Family
• Identity