It is certainly very hard to write about sex in English without making it unattractive.

No two persons ever read the same book.

They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness.

On the one hand, I have wanted to supply documentation on myself by including material relevant to my emotions and ideas in my youth; and, on the other, not to let myself down by publishing inferior material. My poetry comes under the latter head. My only advice to the reader is to skip any verse that he sees coming.

If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.

I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.

A young poet in America should not be advised at the outset to give up all for the Muse-to seclude himself in the country, to live hand from mouth in Greenwich Village or to escape to the Riviera. I should not advise him even to become a magazine editor or work in a publisher's office. The poet would do better to study a profession, to become a banker or a public official or even to go in for the movies.