We made in those days tiny identical rooms inside our bodies which the men who uncover our graves will find in a thousand years shining and whole.

Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

Horace, when he wrote the Ars Poetica, recommended that poets keep their poems home for ten years; don't let them go, don't publish them until you have kept them around for ten years: by that time, they ought to stop moving on you; by that time, you ought to have them right.

I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems.

Words seem like drops of water in a stream that has its own wholeness and its own motion.

Every now and then I meet someone certain of personal greatness. I want to pat this person on the shoulder and mutter comforting words: "Things will get better! You won't always feel so depressed! Cheer up!"

We made in those days tiny identical rooms inside our bodies which the men who uncover our graves will find in a thousand years shining and whole.