It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London.

My mind may be American but my heart is British.

In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unfinished vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings.

April is the cruellest month.

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

It's not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.