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.

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

A teacher is a person who never says anything once.

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.

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

A lot happens by accident in poetry.

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.