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.

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.

If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem.

I pick the hair from her eyes and watch her misery with compassion.

[History is] a tyranny over the souls of the dead - and so the imagination of the living.

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

One thing I am convinced more and more is true, and that is this: The only way to be truly happy is to make others happy. When you realize that and take advantage of the fact, everything is made perfect.