An English poet writes, I think, just for people who are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance . . .

When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.

History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

All that you can imagine you already know.

So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself

All the posters on the walls All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for dive

Nothing is as peaceful as when Christmas is over, when one has been forgiven for everything and can be normal again.

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.

Official education was telling people almost nothing of the nature of all those things on the seashores, and in the redwood forests, in the deserts and in the plains.

My nipples could cut glass.

God seeks us as eagerly as we seek God.

Only when men are connected to large, universal goals are they really happy-and one result of their happiness is a rush of creative activity.

People ask, 'What's the best role you've ever played?' The next one.

Seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

It’s a great feeling to be wanted but it’s more exciting to be inaccessible.