I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems like that cost? They're not written vicariously: they come out of actual suffering, real madness.

I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?

I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems like that cost? They're not written vicariously: they come out of actual suffering, real madness.

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.