In the novel or the journal you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival.

I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy.

True power is given to the vulnerable.

A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.

For poetry is, I believe, always an act of the spirit. The poem teaches us something while we make it. The poem makes you as you make the poem, and your making of the poem requires all your capacities of thought, feeling, analysis, and synthesis.

It is the place of renewal and of safety, where for a little while there will be no harm or attack and, while every sense is nourished, the soul rests.

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.