Emigration, forced or chosen, across national frontiers or from village to metropolis, is the quintessential experience of our time.

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.

A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.

Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

Every authentic poem contributes to the labor of poetry... to bring together what life has separated or violence has torn apart... Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.

Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.

Your lips, beloved, are like a honeycomb: honey and milk are under the tongue. And the smell of your clothes is like the smell of my home.