... the reason why there are so few first-class poets is that many people have intense feelings or first-class minds but to get the two together so that you will be willing to put a poem through sixty drafts, to be that self-critical, to keep breaking it down, that is what is rare. Right now most poetry is just self-indulgence.

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

It is possible, I suppose, that we are returning to a Dark Age. What is frightening is that violence is not only represented by nations, but everywhere walks among us freely.

I know you have much to bear with in me, and I really do sometimes in you, but I have never looked at friendship in a deep sense as easy or entirely comfortable.

We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be.

One of the springs of poetry is joy.

Is it perhaps the one necessity of love, that it be needed? And the one great human tragedy that it so rarely is?