A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being.

People who read me seem to be divided into four groups: twenty-five percent like me for the right reasons; twenty-five percent like me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the wrong reasons; twenty-five percent hate me for the right reasons. It's that last twenty-five percent that worries me.

For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew. I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew.

And one of the three great things in the world is gossip, you know. First there's religion; and then there's science; and there's-and then there's friendly gossip. Those are the three-the three great things.

The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.