This suspension of one's own reality, this being entirely alone in a strange city (at times I wondered if I had lost the power of speech) is an enriching state for a writer. Then the written word ... takes on an intensity of its own. Nothing gets exteriorized or dissipated; all is concentrated within.

making order out of disorder any time, anywhere, can be regarded as a sacrament.

Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom from time.

Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as it should be.

We have to believe that every person counts, counts as a creative force that can move mountains.

The fact is that I have lived with the belief that power, any kind of power, was the one thing forbidden to poets. ... Power requires that the inner person never be unmasked. No, we poets have to go naked. And since this is so, it is better that we stay private people; a naked public person would be rather ridiculous, what?

Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.