dogma and shrinking from the external world are at one limit of the range of belief. At the other are science and poetry and, indeed, reality.

American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare

I think there is a choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

Dreams are the sources of action, the meeting and the end, a resting place among the flight of things.

The process of writing a poem represents work done on the self of the poet, in order to make form.

A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them.

The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality.