I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

If you're looking for something to be brave about, consider fine arts.

I was under twenty when I deliberately put it to myself one night after good conversation that there are moments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. The curse of our book language is not so much that it keeps forever to the same set phrases . . . but that it sounds forever with the same reading tones. We must go out into the vernacular for tones that haven't been brought to book.

What is required is sight and insight- then you might add one more: excite.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

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

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.