We live in an age which eschews sentimentality as if it were a good de — Randall Jarrell

"When you’re young you try to be methodical and philosophical, but reality keeps breaking in."

"We read our mail and counted up our missions — In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about in school — Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among The people we had killed and never seen. When we lasted long enough they gave us medals; When we died they said, "Our casualties were low." They said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities."

"Art matters not merely because it is the most magnificent ornament and the most nearly unfailing occupation of our lives, but because it is life itself."

"Malraux writes in a language in which there is no way to say "perhaps" or "I dont know," so that after a while we grow accustomed to saying it for him."

"Delmore carries such a petty, personally involved, New Yorkish atmosphere around with him its almost unpleasant for me to see him. He thinks that Schiller and St Paul were just two Partisan Review editors."

"The nurse is the night To wake to, to die in: and the day I live, The world and its life are her dreams."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"I say this to you because we Spaniards are a forgetful people, because we are used to living for the moment, because we do not look back, because we do not know how to see the chain of heroes, because we do not contemplate the sum of sacrifices."

"Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone."

"Long time to see. (VS: Tapion)"

"Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants." Once in a discussion about the rapid growth of mathematics in modern times, von Neumann was heard to remark that whereas thirty years ago a mathematician could grasp all of mathematics, that is impossible today. Someone asked him: "What percentage of all mathematics might a person aspire to understand today?" Von Neumann went into one of his five-second thinking trances, and said: "About 28 percent."

"Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their childrens minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are."