The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.

Memory is each man's poet-in-residence.

Rhythm to me is essentially what Hopkins called the taste of self. I taste myself as rhythm.

An old poet ought never to be caught with his technique showing.

We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.

When they shall paint our sockets gray And light us like a stinking fuse, Remember that we once could say, Yesterday we had a world to lose.

We have to learn how to live with our frailties. The best people I know are inadequate and unashamed.