It’s a curious thing. I suppose most people think of artists as impatient but I don’t know of any first-rate artist who hasn’t manifested in his career an appalling patience, a willingness to wait and to do his best now in the expectation that next year he will do better.

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

Weightless in water, swift as the wind, Subtle of purpose - a feather blown - I go with my oarsmen where they will, My beautiful body and theirs all one.

There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

The job of the poet is to render the world-to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.