Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain.

I don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.

I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me.

Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.

And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.