Poetry finds its perilous equilibrium somewhere between music and speech.

we are never done with thinking about our parents, I suppose, and come to know them better long after they are dead than we ever did when they were alive.

Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels.

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

One thing is certain, and I have always known it - the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about

And I refuse to feel guilty about not letter-writing either. There are times when one can, times when one can't. In the times when an enormous amount of living is going on, one can't.

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.