“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”

“The poet Marianne Moore famously wrote of 'real toads in imaginary gardens,' and the labyrinth offers us the possibility of being real creatures in symbolic space...In such spaces as the labyrinth we cross over [between real and imaginary spaces]; we are really travelling, even if the destination is only symbolic.”

“... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ...... if you demand on one hand,the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on the other handgenuine, then you are interested in poetry.”

“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" --above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we have it.”

“We should be happy to see toads in our gardens.”

“Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.”