I am not ready to die, / But I am learning to trust death / As I have trusted life.

Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.

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

The beginner hugs his infant poem to him and does not want it to grow up. But you may have to break your poem to remake it.

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

For any writer who wants to keep a journal, be alive to everything, not just to what you're feeling, but also to your pets, to flowers, to what you're reading.

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