"The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all."
"where are the gods the gods hate us the gods have run away the gods have hidden in holes the gods are dead of the plague they rot and stink too there never were any gods there’s only death"
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Source: Ted Hughes (2009). “The Hawk in the Rain”, p.15, Faber & Faber
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More quotes by Ted Hughes
"What’s writing really about? It’s about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life."
"...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic."
"The sea cries with its meaningless voice, Treating alike its dead and its living"
"And that's how we measure out our real respect for people—by the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry and tolerate—and enjoy. End of sermon. As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you."
"I shall also take you forth and carve our names together in a yew tree, haloed with stars."