Humankind Cannot Stand Reality.

Sister, Mother And Spirit Of The River, Spirit Of The Sea, Suffer Me Not To Be Separated And Let My Cry Come Unto Thee.

It Seems Just Possible That A Poem Might Happen To A Very Young Man: But A Poem Is Not Poetry -that Is A Life.

People To Whom Nothing Has Ever Happened Cannot Understand The Unimportance Of Events.

If Time And Space, As Sages Say, Are Things Which Cannot Be, The Sun Which Does Not Feel Decay No Greater Is Than We. So Why, Love, Should We Ever Pray To Live A Century? The Butterfly That Lives A Day Has Lived Eternity.

It Is Self-evident That St. Louis Affected Me More Deeply Than Any Other Environment Has Ever Done. I Feel That There Is Something In Having Passed One's Childhood Beside The Big River, Which Is Incommunicable To Those People Who Have Not. I Consider Myself Fortunate To Have Been Born Here, Rather Than In Boston, Or New York, Or London.