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

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

“A poet never takes notes..you never take notes in a Love Affair.”

“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”

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

“When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right.”

“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.”