“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

“Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world.”

“Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.”

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”

“Anything more than the truth would be too much.”

“You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.”

“Yes, and even for the past...that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was. Something I can accept. Mistakes made by the self I had to be or was not able to be.”