“Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.”

“Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second.”

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

“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.”

“poets are like baseball pitchers. both have their moments. the intervals are the tough things.”

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.”

“The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”