I think these days when there is so little to believe in——when the old loyalties——God, country, and the hope of Heaven——aren't very real, we are more dependent than we should be on our friends. The only thing left to believe in——someone who seems beautiful.

Either I exist or I do not exist, and no amount of pap which I happen to be lapping can dull me to the loss.

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. ... it filled me with soul satisfying joy.

It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

History, history! We fools, what do we know or care.

Poetry demands a different material than prose. It uses another facet of the same fact... the spontaneous conformation of language as it is heard.