What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.

The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.

Some people are blinded by their experience. Soldiers know how important war is. Owners of slaves learn every day how inferior subject peoples are.

My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?

A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.