I do not see why I should e’er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Poetry is a reaching out forward expression, an effort to find fulfillment

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

You've got to love what's lovable, and hate what's hateable. It takes brains to see the difference.