“Don't be blinded by the theorists and a lying press.”

“If anybody ever shuts you in Indiana...and you don't at least write some unconstrained something or other, I give up hope for your salvation.”

“No one knows, at sight a masterpiece.And give up verse, my boy,There's nothing in it.Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:Don't kick against the pricks,Accept opinion. The Nineties tried your gameAnd died, there's nothing in it.”

“The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.”

“And the days are not full enoughAnd the nights are not full enoughAnd life slips by like a field mouseNot shaking the grass”

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough.”

“This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.”