It is clear that we do not exactly choose our poems; our poems choose us.

The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth.

What frightens me about America today is that in the large majority there is no active sense of the value of the individual: few citizens feel that they are the Republic, responsible for what happens. And when the individual in a democracy ceases to feel his importance, then there is grave danger that he will give over his freedom, if not to a Fascist State, then to the advertising men or Publicity Agents or to the newspaper he happens to read.

Inside my mother's death / I lay and could not breathe.

Don't forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius.

Read between the lines.Then meet me in the silence if you can.

we are never done with thinking about our parents, I suppose, and come to know them better long after they are dead than we ever did when they were alive.