“The text contains no literary criticism. I wanted to describe books, not to be clever at their expense.”

“I want to buy me a hat with a golden feather & a book with the confessions of God in it”

“I'm such a clever Toad.”

“I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.”

“I don't know where you'd find such a magazine." ~ on the stipulations set by a benefactor to the Harvard Advocate that the staff contain no Jews, homosexuals, or drunks”

“A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car”

“It would be unfair to say that I prefer the back of a book to its contents, but it is true that the sight of a lot of books gives me the hope that I may some day read them, which sometimes develops into the belief that I have read them.”