“A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him. To remain a poet after forty requires an awareness of your darkest Africa, that part of yourself that will never be tamed.”

“Every notary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.”

“The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen ... Perhaps it can't be done without the poet, but it certainly can't be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that's all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.”

“The sun set beyond thesea, so says the poet - and when a poet mentions a sea, we have to accept it; no harm in letting a poet describe his vision, no need to question his geography.”

“Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.”

“to be a poet, requires a mythology of the self. The self described is the poet self, to which the daily self (and others) are often ruthlessly sacrificed. The poet self is the real self, the other one is the carrier; and when the poet self dies, the person dies.”