You can publish a poem you think is a very important poem, and you don't hear a word from anyone. [...] You can publish a book of poetry by dropping it off a cliff and waiting to hear an echo. Quite often, you'll never hear a thing. So doing that, using older work, puts it in a context, and that sort of forces the reader to realize what its importance is-if it has any. Everything needs a context. You're not going to recognize a poet unless you have a context.

I'm reading a book about Romaine Brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century.

Almost every truly creative being alienated & expatriated in his own country

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.

When you're young, everything seems like a romance. At 96, I can still feel romantic about publishing young unknown writers.

We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn't have any money for lawyers.

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups. One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you. One fine day.