The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it.

When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom on anything solid. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think of what it was like to be alive.

The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know; in a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.

You're terrific as far as I am concerned.