I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

So I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.

The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.

Poetry is an art practiced with the terribly plastic material of human language.