The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder's mitt. he was left handed. The thing that was descriptive about it though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink. He wrote them on it so that he'd have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat

If Death stepped miraculously through the glass and came in after you, in all probability you just got up and went along with him, ferociously but quietly.

Each of his phrases was rather like a little ancient island, inundated by a miniature sea of whiskey.

I can be quite sarcastic when I'm in the mood.

The room was not impressively large, even by Manhattan apartment-house standards, but its accumulated furnishings might have lent a snug appearance to a banquet hall in Valhalla.