Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.

I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us.

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?

Writing is like the relationship with your bowels. First you can, then you can't. Finally, you must. Only then should you reach for the paper.

When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had.

When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all.