If the day ever comes when they know who They are, they may know better where they are.

Far more violence has been done in obeying the law than in breaking the law.

Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination. That is all that can save poetry from sing-song, all that can save prose from itself.

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.

When I see birches bend to left and right... I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

Writing a poem is discovering.