For more than a decade, I’ve maintained a list of quotes I like by poets, writers, and thinkers I find interesting. This post is part of that series. All posts in the series are organized alphabetically.

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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. — Albert Einstein

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something / Upon which to rejoice — T. S. Eliot

To be conscious is not to be in time / But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, / The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, / The moment in the draughty church at smokefall / Be remembered; involved with past and future. / Only through time is time conquered — T.S. Eliot

I have three closets and one / is filled with my black clothes—the crying closet—dark when the door opens— / clothes difficult to tell apart — Carol Ellis

he will smile at her way of doing things / the way he smiled at your way of doing things / and at night, he will draw her close, / like you, assimilated, beloved. — C Malcolm Ellsworth

From the porch / I watched you become shadowless, / then featureless, until I knew / you couldn’t see either, and still / the dusk rang out, your aim that easy; / between the iron stakes you had driven / into the hard earth yourself — Claudia Emerson

What I want to say is that culture—art, if you like—has an important set of functions in preparing us for the future. — Brian Eno

You are a poet and sometimes it helps you / and sometimes it distances you from others. — Shira Erlichman

Let me warn you now: / There is no shame in running away, no / lie you have to tell for being afraid. We / are all supposed to jump. — Justin Evans

I want the right line / for our marriage, but the exact emotion / is a peach packed in ice. I cannot accept this, / though clearly, here it is, cold / and ripe, and now, in hand, passed / between us like a desperate artifact. — Kerry James Evans

Change one letter and womb is bomb. — Kate Evans