Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us a maverick, the darling stubborn one who won't listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force.

So every day So every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you.

Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it.

Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.