Poets, on the face of it, have either got to be easier or to write their own notes; readers have either got to take more trouble over reading or cease to regard notes as pretentious and a sign of bad… — William Empson Copy Share Image
“Villanelle It is the pain, it is the pain endures. Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through. Poise of my hands reminded me of… — William Empson Copy Share Image
Proust has listed a great many reasons why it is impossible to be happy, but, in the course of being happy, one finds it… — William Empson Copy Share Image
“Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end. What is there to be or do? What's become of me or you? Are we… — William Empson Copy Share Image
“Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and… — William Empson Copy Share Image
The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own. — William Empson Copy Share Image
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and… — William Empson Copy Share Image
I'm afraid I take ... this rather clinical view of love: it's saving you from madness. I'm not so enthusiastic as other poets have been. — William Empson Copy Share Image
All those large dreams by which men long live well Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell. — William Empson Copy Share Image
Twixt devil and deep sea, man hacks his caves; Birth, death; one, many; what is true, and seems; Earth's vast hot iron, cold space's… — William Empson Copy Share Image
