The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.

I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones.

I never abandoned either forms or freedom. I imagine that most of what could be called free verse is in my first book. I got through that fairly early.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.

Both poet and painter want to reach the silence behind the language, the silence within the language. Both painter and poet want their work to shine not only in daylight but (by whatever illusionist magic) from within.

A teacher is a person who never says anything once.