Love cannot exorcise the gifts of hate. / Hate cannot exorcize what has no weight, / But laughter we can never over-rate.

Revision is not going back and fussing around, but going forward into the process of creation

each new poem is partly propelled by the formal energies of all the poems that have preceded it in the history of literature.

It is the privilege of those who fear love to murder those who do not fear it!

The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.

I feel happy to be keeping a journal again. I've missed it, missed naming things as they appear, missed the half hour when I push all duties aside and savor the experience of being alive in this beautiful place.

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.