Mountains define you. You cannot define / Them.

Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

We have to believe that every person counts, counts as a creative force that can move mountains.

... 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.

Sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands.

I feel often very close to the ecstasy and anguish which lie at the very heart of poetry - I am writing a lot.

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