My definition of poetry (if I were forced to give one) would be this: words that have become deeds.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

Nothing flatters me more than to have it assumed that I could write prose, unless it be to have it assumed that I once pitched a baseball with distinction.

In heaven we are all ghostwriters, if we write at all.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

What is this talked-of mystery of birth. But being mounted bareback on the earth?

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.