The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance begins when you try to convert it into language.
Stanley KunitzNot that you need to be a saint to have visions worth talking about. The most effective prescription, I suspect, is to be a disciplined sinner. Perfection, as Valery noted, is work.
Stanley KunitzWe have to learn how to live with our frailties. The best people I know are inadequate and unashamed.
Stanley KunitzWriter's block is a natural affliction. Writers who have never experienced it have something wrong with them. It means there isn't enough friction-that they aren't making enough of an effort to reconcile the contradictions of life. All you get is sweet monotonous flow. Writer's block is nothing to commit suicide over. It simply indicates some imbalance between your experience and your art, and I think that's constructive.
Stanley Kunitz