Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.

An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession. In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not. And what you do not know is the only thing you know And what you own is what you do not own And where you are is where you are not.

Words strain, crack, and sometime break, under the burden.

You have to risk going too far to discover just how far you can really go.

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

I say to you: Make perfect your will. / I say: take no thought of the harvest, / But only of proper sowing.