What you really value is what you miss, not what you have.

In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem.

The things that are said in literature are always the same. What is important is the way they are said. Looking for metaphors, for example: When I was a young man I was always hunting for new metaphors. Then I found out that really good metaphors are always the same.

A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships

I don't think esthetic schools are important. What is important is the use that is made of them, or whatever the individual writer does.

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.