When work becomes play, and play becomes your work, your life unfolds.

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

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 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.

Education is hanging around until you've caught on.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.