It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work.

For me a true poem is on the way when I begin to be haunted, when it seems as if I were being asked an inescapable question by an angel with whom I must wrestle to get at the answer.

Miracles cannot be explained, that is their miraculous nature.

I believe that children long for form just as grownups do, and that it releases rather than cramps creative energy.

over and over again I am struck by the wordiness of modern poetry, as if language had replaced experience and must be more and more extreme, intricate and in a way divorced from life itself. It seems as if what we all need is a great purification - but how will that come about?

Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything - except itself.

Solitude is one thing and loneliness is another.