It all began, as I have said, when the Boss, sitting in the black Cadillac which sped through the night, said to me (to Me who was what Jack Burden, the student of history, had grown up to be) "There is always something." And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge." And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.

I longed to know the world's name.

For whatever you live is life.

For the truth is a terrible thing.

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.

History is all explained by geography.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.