Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.

Poetry makes nothing happen.

And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.

Our claim to our own bodies and our world is our catastrophe.

Words are for those with promises to keep.

Life is a picnic on a precipice.