Perhaps art is simply an organism's reaction against its retentive limitations.

At certain periods of history it is only poetry that is capable of dealing with reality by condensing it into something graspable, something that otherwise wouldn't be retained by the mind.

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

Every life has a file, if you will.

Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

If I can get somewhere, I'm all right. If not, I'm miserable.