“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.”

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

“And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.”

“Something sinister in the toneTold me my secret must be known:Word I was in the house aloneSomehow must have gotten abroad,Word I was in my life alone,Word I had no one left but God.”

“My goal in life is to unite my avocation with my vocation,As my two eyes make one in sight.”

“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.”

“The Master Speed No speed of wind or water rushing bybut you have speed far greater. You can climbback up a stream of radiance to the sky,and back through history up the stream of time.And you were given this swiftness, not for hastenor chiefly that you may go where you will,but in the rush of everything to waste,that you may have the power of standing still--off any still or moving thing you say.Two such as you with such a master speedFrom one another once you are agreedthat life is only life forevermoretogether wing to wing and oar to oar.”