“You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

“You see, life only turns out good or bad for only a little bit. And then it turns out some other way.”

“And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”

“When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way.”

“You have to create a form from the life that exists, not the other way around. If it comes out in these little pieces, that's what it is.”