Distillation Column

Famous quotes containing the words distillation and/or column:

    In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It’s the drowning out of false voices.
    Don Delillo (b. 1926)

    I stand on top
    of our back steps and breathe the rich air—
    a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail.
    She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
    of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
    and will not scare.
    Robert Lowell (1917–1977)