Sometimes I feel if I was young again, I would wrap a bandana around my head like Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and I would become a pirate of the Web. And I would go around stealing poems and assembling into one spot like a treasure cave.

One way or another, all the poets of the thirties and forties reacted to Auden, either by rejecting him or trying to absorb him.

People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways.

I've only got a fraction of the energy I once had, but I think I probably use it better.

Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.

Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.

You can't be young always. The day will come when everything will fall apart.