Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.

Suspect too much sweet talk but never close your mind.

I rhyme… to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Harvard meant a lot in my writing life from the beginning, even though I didnt actually do much composition on the spot.

I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing.

Im a firm believer in learning by heart.