Of course there is matter for remark in poems. Nobody denies that. But it must be solemnly laid on everybody in this world to make his own observations and remarks. That's what we mean by thinking, and that's about all we mean. A teacher says to a pupil "Watch me notice a few things in the next few months: let's see you notice a few things too."

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

Both T.S. Eliot and I like to play, but I like to play euchre, while he likes to play Eucharist.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

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

The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.

Life is tons of discipline. Your first discipline is your vocabulary; then your grammar and your punctuation Then, in your exuberance and bounding energy you say you're going to add to that. Then you add rhyme and meter. And your delight is in that power.