Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, "Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night." You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.

One reason cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.

I've always thought of myself as a reporter.

I am an ordinary human being who is impelled to write poetry. ... I still do feel that a poet has a duty to words, and that words can do wonderful things, and it's too bad to just let them lie there without doing anything with and for them.

beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.

Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.