The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.

I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow.

I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.

Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.

The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.

I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.