After a lifetime of world travel I've been fascinated that those in the third world don't have the same perception of reality that we do.

The world that used to nurse us now keeps shouting inane instructions. That's why I ran to the woods.

All artists as a type seem to suffer a great deal, but then so do miners.

I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems.

So when I made some money, I didn't have any idea how one handled such a situation because no one in our family ever had any money.

I was on the verge of jumping into one of those holes in life out of which we emerge a bit tattered and bloody, though we remain sure nonetheless that we had to make the jump.

Poetry at its best is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.