A Quote by Peter S. Beagle

I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, 'Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.
Some readers may be disturbed that I wrote 'The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson' in Emily's own voice. I wasn't trying to steal her thunder or her music. I simply wanted to imagine my way into the head and heart of Emily Dickinson.
I learned from my dad and my mom somebody should only have to tell you once. Whether it's me getting in trouble, they said I should only have to tell you once. I've kind of took that and made that for all aspects.
Performing in the theater is a very ethereal profession because you do it once and it goes out into the ether and it goes into people's minds and that's the only place that it ever exists. And it never exists truly; it only exists in the way that people think they remember it. But it's a really powerful way to tell a story and to pass something on.
I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue. If it does, I can feel a sense of momentum - the poem finds a reason for continuing.
If my daughter has a bad dream and wants to get into my bed, I'm a sucker for her sweet face and warm body next to mine, so I let her jump in. I should tell her to go to bed, but secretly I love it.
I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue.
I didn't have any aspirations of becoming famous or successful; in fact I was scared to death of all that. I remember somebody once said that if a rock musician goes on tour, he goes insane. I was very impressionable and I carried this useless weight of fear around with me about going on tour, all because of this thing somebody said.
I first got caught up in this marvelous feeling of being spoken to in that very direct, private, magical way by a poem when I was really young. I was in grade school and had found an Emily Dickinson poem in a textbook.
The Soul selects her own Society.
I used to tell people when I was 15 or 16 that I'd never be that girl who goes through this, gets her heart broken, falls for this guy, but I ended up being her.
One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I'll have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that of any other.
Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image.
When I was a young boy in San Francisco, I remember being sent home - I was playing with a friend. And I remember the mother saying, tell Jeffrey to go home. And I said to the girl, I said, why? She goes, my mother says that you're the people who killed Christ.
The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority Obtrude no more.
If you want to get close to somebody, you have to tell him or her something intimate about yourself. They'll tell you something intimate in return, and if you keep this going, maybe you'll end up in love.
I have been in love with Emily Dickinson's poetry since I was 13, and, like an anonymous post on findagrave.com says, 'Dear Emily - I hope I have understood.' Emily's poems are sometimes difficult, often abstract, on occasion flippant, but her mind is inside them.
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