But we shall not know the world by looking at it; we know it by looking at the hovering fly.

At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry; all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.

Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.

We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a ham actor, not a poet.