All poets who, when reading from their own works,m experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not.

Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?

If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

Loneliness is a strange gift.

A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate millions... Of all targets New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm.