I like food, I like stripping vegetables of their skins, I like to have a slim young parsnip under my knife.

There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a friend. This is the simplest of thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.

The world is come upon me, I used to keep it a long way off, But now I have been run over and I am in the hands of the hospital staff.

I'm sorry to say my dear wife is a dreamer, and as she dreams she gets paler and leaner. Then be off to your Dream, with his fly-away hat, I stay with the girls who are happy and fat.

All poetry has to do is to make a strong communication. All the poet has to do is listen. The poet is not an important fellow. There will also be another poet.

I love Death because he breaks the human pattern and frees us from pleasures too prolonged as well as from the pains of this world. It is pleasant, too, to remember that Death lies in our hands; he must come if we call him. ... I think if there were no death, life would be more than flesh and blood could bear.

Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.