" Do you know what a poem is, Esther?'
'No, what?' I would say.
'A piece of dust.'
Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together. "

― Sylvia Plath , The Bell Jar