I feel very happy to see the sun come up every day. I feel happy to be around. ... I like to take this day- any day-and go to town with it.

A poet trains himself to stand out in a storm and be struck by lightning. If he is lucky enough to be struck six times, he becomes immortal. Randall Jarrell said it and he's right.

I want a fever, in poetry: a fever, and tranquillity.

I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.

So much destruction in modern war takes place miles and miles away from the source of the destruction, the human being who has caused it.

To be precise and reckless: that is the consummation devoutly to be wished.

Find out what you do best, and then don't do it.