the masses are everywhere they know how to do things: they have sane and deadly angers for sane and deadly things.

I often carry things to read so that I will not have to look at the people.

Those faces you see every day on the streets were not created entirely without hope: be kind to them: like you they have not escaped.

When Ginsburg is at the top of his game you might as well put down your toys and listen.

A day of minor profit or prophet led to a night of drunkenness.

I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being... Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.

great books are the ones we need