What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.

The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.