Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

The primary function of poetry, as of all the arts, is to make us more aware of ourselves and the world around us. I do not know if such increased awareness makes us more moral or more efficient. I hope not. I think it makes us more human, and I am quite certain it makes us more difficult to deceive.

The most difficult problem in personal knowledge, whether of oneself or of others, is the problem of guessing when to think as a historian and when to think as an anthropologist.

The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born.

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

Money cannot buy the fuel of love but is excellent kindling.

To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith