Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.

Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them. We need them. Like the back of the picture.

You grieve Not that heaven does not exist but That it exists without us

We are not born to survive. Only to live.

Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You've got to stop what you're doing, what you're thinking, and what you're expecting and just be there for the poem for however long it takes.

I will take with me the emptiness of my hands. What you do not have you find everywhere

I also think that life itself is both indifferent to us and the source of all of our joys and everything that we love. And it's necessary to accept the one in order to love the other.