Till I, high in the tower of my time Among familiar ruins, began to cry For accident, sickness, justice, war and crime, Because all died, because I had to die. The snow fell, the trees stood, the promise kept, And a child I slept.

History is where tensions were.

We think about sex obsessively except during the act, when our minds tend to wander.

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.

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

I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem.

Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated.