I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.

For we know when a nation goes down and never comes back, when a society or a civilization perishes, one condition may always be found. They forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what brought them along.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.

Freedom is baffling: men having it often know not they have it till it is gone and they no longer have it.

Poetry is an enumeration of birds, bees, babies, butterflies, bugs, bambinos, babayagas, and bipeds, beating their way up bewildering bastions.

I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.