In democracy both a deep reverence and a sense of the comic are requisite.

It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry is a sequence of dots and dashes, spelling depths, crypts, cross-lights, and moon wisps.

Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.