The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

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

However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole.

The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.

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.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

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