There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.

There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

democracy is dying. We are ruled by faceless bureaucrats and lecherous puritans. ... You think about it. 'All right for me but not for you' is their philosophy.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.