The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

The beauty of enmity is insecurity; the beauty of friendship is in security.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

A true sonnet goes eight lines and then takes a turn for better or worse and goes six or eight lines more.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

You, of course, are a rose-- But were always a rose.