If you remember only one thing I've said, remember that an idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor. If you have never made a good metaphor, then you don't know what it's all about.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.

Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow.

It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

If one by one we counted people out

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.