We do not fight for the real but for shadows we make. A flag is a piece of cloth and a word is a sound, But we make them something neither cloth nor a sound, Totems of love and hate, black sorcery-stones.

Sometimes a sign or a quote is simply interesting by itself and does not require anything beyond being framed on a page.

I admire the attention other writers can give to the world we're walking in.

There's nothing compared to the history of writing about the city of New York that you get, say, in Charles Reznikoff.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong. We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.

I died in my boots like a pioneer With the whole wide sky above me.

American Muse, whose strong and diverse heart So many men have tried to understand But only made it smaller with their art, Because you are as various as your land.