For life is a fire burning along a piece of string--or is it a fuse to a powder keg which we call God?--and the string is what we don't know, our Ignorance, and the trail of ash, which, if a gust of wind does not come, keeps the structure of the string, is History, man's Knowledge, but it is dead, and when the fire has burned up all the string, then man's Knowledge will be equal to God's Knowledge and there won't be any fire, which is Life. Or if the string leads to a powder keg, then there will be a terrific blast of fire, and even the trail of ash will be blown completely away.

And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us. That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth.

All I've tried to do (with my writing) is capture the essence of my time.

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

Poets, we know, are terribly sensitive people, and in my observation one of the things they are most sensitive about is money.

Your business as a writer is not to illustrate virtue but to show how a fellow may move toward it or away from it.

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