There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.

There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience.

Writers . . . write to give reality to experience.

The map of America is a map of endlessness, of opening out, of forever and ever. No man's face would make you think of it but his hope might, his courage might.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Piety's hard enough to take among the poor who have to practice it. A rich man's piety stinks. It's insufferable.

A poem should not mean but be.