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.

The appointment [in Harvard] gave me economic safety, writerly support, and intellectual self-respectplus eight months to myself every year.

A writer is not different from a reader, in that the common ragbag of orthodoxies and assumptions is what a poet has to work with as well.

It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.

The end of art is peace.

My teaching was animated by what I was reading and being excited by as a poet.