There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

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.

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

My father and he had cemented one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether.

Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.