All the literati keep at least one imaginary friend.

I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.

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.

In the West you have every opportunity for civilization to triumph.

Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection.

In the end, like the Almighty Himself, we make everything in our image, for want of a more reliable model; our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions.

I am quite prepared to die here [in NY]. It doesn't matter at all. I don't know better places, or perhaps if I do I am not prepared to make a move.