A . . . poet is a discoverer rather than an inventor.

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future . . . I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world.

The art of writing is mysterious; the opinions we hold are ephemeral , and I prefer the Platonic idea of the Muse to that of Poe, who reasoned, or feigned to reason, that the writing of a poem is an act of the intelligence. It never fails to amaze me that the classics hold a romantic theory of poetry, and a romantic poet a classical theory.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.

Reality is partial to symmetry and slight anachronisms

The sea is an idiom I cannot decipher.

Best thing to happen for a poet. A fine death, no? An impressive death.