[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).

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

Language is remarkable, except under the extreme constraints of mathematics and logic, it never can talk only about what it's supposed to talk about but is always spreading around.

This Constitutional Republic called America is an historic aberration. Any honest student of history will note that the prevailing socio-economic system is feudalism, where a tiny minority control the vast majority of wealth, power, and resources. In doing so, they have absolute control over the 99% of the population. Power equals control.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

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.

Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.