poetry is first of all a way of life and only secondarily a way of writing.

Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.

It is dangerous it seems to me for a civilization when there is a complete abyss betewen people in general and the artists. Or is it always so? The poets who are most ardently on the people's side write in such a way that the people cannot see rhyme nor reason to their work.

The price of being oneself is so high and involves so much ruthlessness toward others (or what looks like ruthlessness in our duty-bound culture) that very few people can afford it.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

One could go on revising a prose page forever whereas there is a point in a poem when one knows it is done forever.