I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries.

I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.