The term ignorant is indeed perhaps an overstatement, implying as it does that something is known somewhere, whereas in reality we are not even sure of this: we in fact cannot aver with any degree of certainty that we are ignorant. Yet this is not so bad; we have at any rate kept our open-mindedness -- that, at least, we may be sure that we have -- and are not in any danger, or so it seems, of freezing into the pious attitudes of those true spiritual bigots whose faces are turned toward eternity and who therefore can see nothing.

I always thought that writing poetry was in itself a political act.

I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.

Once you've lived in France, you don't want to live anywhere else, including France.

I often wonder if I am suffering from some mental dysfunction because of how weird and baffling my poetry seems to so many people and sometimes to me too.

Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?

The first year was like icing. Then the cake started to show through.