A sweeping statement is the only statement worth listening to. The critic without faith gives balanced opinions, usually about second-rate writers.

A man is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known to all good men.

Patrick Kavanagh

To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime's experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields - these are as much as a man can fully experience.

Patrick Kavanagh