affection, along with humor, and appreciation of each other’s minds, and of Krazy Kat . Faced with England, and the New World, and Freud and all, we always managed to relax, and go back to the kidding, and bad punning, and drinking, to the end. It really was marvelous." - Meaning and context.">
On his friendship with T. S. Eliot
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We developed a shorthand language of our own which we fell into for the rest of our lives whenever we met, no holds barred — all a matter of past reference, a common language, but basically affection, along with humor, and appreciation of each other’s minds, and of Krazy Kat . Faced with England, and the New World, and Freud and all, we always managed to relax, and go back to the kidding, and bad punning, and drinking, to the end. It really was marvelous.

— Conrad Aiken

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "We developed a shorthand language of our own which we fell into for the rest of our lives whenever we met, no holds barred — all a matter of past reference, a common language, but basically affection, along with humor, and appreciation of each other’s minds, and of Krazy Kat . Faced with England, and the New World, and Freud and all, we always managed to relax, and go back to the kidding, and bad punning, and drinking, to the end. It really was marvelous." in the context of "On his friendship with T. S. Eliot" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Conrad Aiken" (Quotes, The Paris Review interview (1963): Interview of September 1963, published in "Conrad Aiken, The Art of Poetry No. 9" by Robert Hunter Wilbur, in The Paris Review (Winter–Spring 1968)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Conrad Aiken

About Conrad Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken (5 August 1889 – 17 August 1973) was an American writer and poet.