Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.

Maybe a man has to sell his soul to get the power to do good.

History is all explained by geography.

There is no country but the heart.

To be an American is not...a matter of blood; it is a matter of an idea--and history is the image of that idea.

The poem is not a thing we see; it is, rather, a light by which we may see.

For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.