“In our era, it is because poetry is no longer practiced that some people can rediscover it in argot, in which the part of poetry remains small. Metaphors are to argot what the image of the Gypsy is to the Gypsy”

“Argot is both a literary and a social phenomenon. What is argot, properly speaking? Argot is the language of misery.”

“Argot is nothing more nor less than a wardrobe in which language, having some bad deed to do, disguises itself. It puts on word-masks and metaphoric rags.”

“Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry?”

“We consult astrology charts like the Babylonians, try to make our children into our own image with a firm hand like the Romans, elbow others to get a breath-quickening glimpse of the queen in her ritual procession, and confess to the priests and attend church. And we wonder why, with all this power capital drawn from so many sources, we are deeply anxious about the meaning of our lives. The reason is plain enough: none of these, nor all of them taken together, represents an integrated world conception into which we fit ourselves with pure belief and trust.”

“The real world is simply too terrible to admit.it tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die.Culture changes all of this,makes man seem important,vital to the universe.immortal in some ways”

“...the summer of the gypsy moths when all the trees in their yard were bare, the leaves chewed by caterpillars. You could hear crunching in the night. You could see silvery cocoon webbing in porch rafter and strung across stop signs.”