I think the greatest curse of American society has been the idea of an easy millennialism -- that some new drug, or the next election or the latest in social engineering will solve everything.

I heard somebody open and shut the gate to the barn lot, but I didn't look around. If I didn't look around it would not be true that somebody had opened the gate with the creaky hinges, and that is a wonderful principle for a man to get hold of... What you don't know know don't hurt you, for it ain't real. They called that Idealism in my book I had when I was in college, and after I got hold of that principle I became an Idealist... If you are an Idealist it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.

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

If you are an idealist, it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.

The past is always a rebuke to the present.

Everything seems an echo of something else.

A symbol serves to combine heart and intellect.