"Indeed if the worst conceivable situations which our
humanity may have to confront lie beyond the scope of
poetry, then poetry itself is a mere diversion." --Kathleen
Raine, The Inner Journey of the Poet

"You talk like a Rosicrusian, who will love no thing but a
sylph, who does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and
who yet quarrels with the whole universe for not containing
a sylph." --Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey (1818)

"The wickedness of Cheops reached such a pitch, that being in
want of money, he prostituted his daughter and ordered her to
make a certain sum of money: but I was not told how much. This
she did, and being minded besides secretly to provide for her
own memorial, she demanded of every man that lay with her the
gift of one stone towards it. And of these stones, they say, was
built the midmost of the three pyramids, fronting the great pyra-
mid, whose sides are a hundred and fifty feet long." --Herodotus
Book II.126 (tr Harry Carter 1958)
[This myth illustrates quite clearly, i think, how the common
people feel about the Caesars & Cheopses of this world.]

    "--Also we've caught
A poet, a small shrill man like a twilight-bat,
Accused of being a traitor to his country..." --Jeffers, "War-
Guilt Trials"

"Nowadays they call slavery ethos, which was being hooked on
values you had no hand in creating." --Ishmael Reed

"...Americans are, perhaps, after the Albanians, the least humorous
of people..." --Gore Vidal

Someday it will be wondered why the people of this age were
always using sentences with the names of famous persons in them
(even our poetry). As if we could not bear to speak about ourselves
or anyone we knew, but still wanted to improvise on some vestige
of a relationship.

Almost a good idea: Which Book lets you set the parameters, & it
comes up with a suggested book to read--but only from those
published after 1995!