at a certain moment in social proceedings, I am on FIRE to leave: I have a leaving-FIT.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

The civil rights situation is like a pregnancy. It will get worse, I believe, before it gets better. What the usual pregnancy comes to is a decent baby. That is what we all hope will be the end product of this stress. It is customary, at the end of a pregnancy, to have for your pains a decent baby.

And if sun comes / How shall we greet him? / Shall we not dread him, / Shall we not fear him / After so lengthy a / Session with shade?

There can be no whiter whiteness than this one: An insurance man's shirt on its morning run.

My last defense / Is the present tense.

Each body has its art.