“Choice, and all its attendant energy, is a characteristic of youth. It is before one chooses that one feels desire and longing without fulfillment, which gives an edge to any artistic endeavor. Galway Kinnell recently said in an interview that a young poet has so many choices but an old poet must simply endure his chosen life.”

“Always there is the one choice to be made: which road to take? which duty to accept? which item, amidst a store's displays, to purchase as our own? The paths of the past parts of our lives are strewn with things not chosen. One believes, nay, one is taught, that choice provides fulfillment of desire. In truth, however, relinquishment and loss enter in to the bargain every single time. Loss looks over the shoulders of fair choice. For every thing one chooses, some thing is left behind.”

“Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, you are still a dreamer, and will one time know, and feel, that your life is but a dream.”

“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.”

“As long as there are young people, and old people, too, who can imagine realities beyond seeing and touching, and as long as there are poets, and artists, and musicians, there will be unicorns.”

“it was dawning on me how uphill a poet's path was, and I confessed to her that if I had to be the choice between being happy or being a poet, I'd choose to be happy.”