Growing old is, of all things we experience, that which takes the most courage, and at a time when we have the least resources, especially with which to meet frustration.

For poetry exists to break through to below the level of reason where the angels and monsters that the amenities keep in the cellar may come out to dance, to rove and roar, growling and singing, to bring life back to the enclosed rooms where too often we are only 'living and partly living.

A body without bones would be a limp impossible mess, so a day without steady routine would be disruptive and chaotic.

The more our bodies fail us, the more naked and more demanding is the spirit, the more open and loving we can become if we are not afraid of what we are and of what we feel. I am not a phoenix yet, but here among the ashes, it may be that the pain is chiefly that of new wings trying to push through.

More than any other beauty (though it is true of all beauty except in art) passion seems to me to have the seeds of its own destruction in it.

Mountains define you. You cannot define / Them.

Time spent with poets is never wasted.