I have sometimes wondered also whether in people like me who come to the boil fast (soupe au lait, the French call this trait, like a milk soup that boils over) the tantrum is not a built-in safety valve against madness or illness. ... The fierce tension in me, when it is properly channeled, creates the good tension for work. But when it becomes unbalanced I am destructive. How to isolate that good tension is my problem these days. Or, put in another way, how to turn the heat down fast enough so the soup won't boil over!

I can understand people simply fleeing the mountainous effort Christmas has become... but there are always a few saving graces and finally they make up for all the bother and distress.

Family life! The United Nations is child's play compared to the tugs and splits and need to understand and forgive in any family.

a poet never feels useful.

One of the good elements of old age is that we no longer have to prove anything, to ourselves or to anyone else. We are what we are.

The beginner hugs his infant poem to him and does not want it to grow up. But you may have to break your poem to remake it.

It is the privilege of those who fear love to murder those who do not fear it!