“Perhaps he could not tell his greatness from ungreatness and so mixed them together that what was adulterated was lost.”
More from Robert Penn Warren
“I wondered if ever my heart would beat again, / As I wandered the moonlight’s dream, past…”
“Everything seems an echo of something else.”
“[On Lincoln] No man has ever distinguished more carefully between 'is' and 'ought to be.'”
“Fellows like Willie Stark are born outside of luck, good or bad, and luck, which is what…”