For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.

The twilight is long fingers and black hair.

Men expect too much, do too little.

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.

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.