For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning?

The irrational haunts the metaphysical.

He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away.

poetry has been able to function quite directly as human interpretation of the raw, loose universe. It is a mixture, if you will, of journalism and metaphysics, or of science and religion.

Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.

The universe is illusion merely, not one speck of it real, and we are not only its victims, falling always into or smashed by a planet slung by the sun-but also its captives, bound by the mineral-made ropes of our senses.