... the poem reminds us of what we ourselves know, but did not know we knew; reminds us, above all, of what we are.

I couldn't claim that I have never felt the urge to explore evil, but when you descend into hell you have to be very careful.

As a child I became a confirmed believer in the ancient gods simply because as between the reality of fact and the reality f myth, I chose myth...Myth is the truth of fact, not fact the truth of myth.

It was not the purpose of poetry to record anything and everything, to merely describe either the outer world or some subjective mood, but to speak from the imagination of the poet to the imagination of the reader.

Poetry is not an end in itself but in the service of life; of what use are poems, or any other works of art, unless to enable human lives to be lived with insight of a deeper kind, with more sensitive feelings, more intense sense of the beautiful, with deeper understanding?

The work of the artist is to heal the soul.

The air is full of a farewell- deserted by the silver lake lies the wild world, overturned. Cities rise where the mountains fell, the furnace where the phoenix burned