“The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn’t got anything to say to the child. All he wants is to have that child sit… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share Image
When you get born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a ham trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can't get it all back but they… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share Image
If you are an idealist, it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway. — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn’t… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“No, the Boss corrected, I'm not a lawyer. I know some law. ... but I'm not a lawyer. That's why I can see what… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
[A]nd soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“Those were the ones which would turn loose their grip on the branch before long-- not in any breeze, the fibers would just relax,… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“Sometimes sleep gets to be a serious and complete thing. You stop going to sleep in order that you may be able to get… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
“He thought of night coming on. He thought of the loneliness of tonight, this first night in the ground. This, he thought, was the… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
The poem is not a thing we see; it is, rather, a light by which we may see. — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
The asking and the answering which history provides may help us to understand, even to frame, the logic of experience to which we shall… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
Process as process is neither morally good nor morally bad. We may judge results but not process. The morally bad agent may perform the… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share
The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share