I want to kill myself, to escape from responsiblity, to crawl abjectly back into the womb.

Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls.

The constant struggle in mature life, I think, is to accept the necessity of tragedy and conflict, and not to try to escape to some falsely simple solution which does not include these more somber complexities.

I'm about fifty years behind as far as my preferences go and I must say that the poets who excite me most are the Americans. There are very few contemporary English poets that I admire.

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.

When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn't know.