I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats

Conscience: self-esteem with a halo.

Progress of a marriage: There was a time when you couldn't make me happy. Now the time has come when you can make me unhappy.

I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats

Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.

Whom the gods do not intend to destroy, they first make mad with poetry.

A poet is deeply conflicted and it's in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. The place is the harbor. It doesn't set the world in order, you know, it's the place of reconciliation. It's the Consolamentum, the kiss of peace.