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.

The tragic thing about learning from experience is I fear that one can only learn from one's own experience. Other people's - other nations' - experiences simply do not help. They can be imaginatively learned from. But people do not act on other people's experiences.

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

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

I love giving flowers. It is so deliciously unlasting and romantic.

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.

I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose-to find out what I think, to know where I stand.