And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

The future is always beginning now.

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

I feel that anything is possible in a poem.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.

Success does not chase after you

I have been through various fitness regimes. I used to run about five miles a day and I did aerobics for a while.

The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.

Something deep in the human heart breaks at the thought of a life of mediocrity.

A Christian is one who rejoices in the superiority of a rival.

Long exercised in woes.

And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out.

If I don't have a mother, I'll let music be my mother.

If you want to do rock and roll, forget about those who've come after '65.

Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards.