It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.

The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky.

As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

There is nothing beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will.

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.

Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses — The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end — of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.

It is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

There are no perfect leaders.

When in doubt go the library

All I want to do is make people beautiful.

I have an air mattress. It's great because if someone tries to suffocate me in bed I can just poke a hole in it and use it to stay alive.

After all the work I've done, why should I suddenly be treated as a bona fide actress?

From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her thoughts.

They can boo me, yell at me, and throw peanuts at me, as long as they pay to get in.

Creativity is the supreme mystery of life, the mystery of the appearance of something new, hitherto unknown, derived from nothing, proceeding from nothing, born of nothing other.

Traveling is my priority, because it drives the writing, so I teach around the travel, and sometimes the travel is the teaching.