All poets adore explosions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, conflagrations, ruins, scenes of spectacular carnage. The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.

Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.

One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in which it is written. Secondly, it must say something significant about a reality common to us all, but perceived from a unique perspective. What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.

Those who hate to go to bed fear death; those who hate to get up fear life.

It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ.

To make one, there must be two.