When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die...they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with the process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.

Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.

There were moments ... when it seemed that all one could be asked was just to keep the ashtrays clean, the bed made, the wastebaskets emptied, as if one never got to the real things because of the constant exhausting battle to keep ordinary life from falling apart.

When one's not writing poems - and I'm not at the moment - you wonder how you ever did it. It's like another country you can't reach.

I sometimes imagine that as one grows older one comes to live a role which as a young person one merely 'played.

I asked myself the question, 'What do you want of your life?' and I realized with a start of recognition and terror, 'Exactly what I have - but to be commensurate, to handle it all better.

It takes a long time for words to become thought.