“Beneath every no lays a passion for yes that had never been broken.”

“After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.”

“The Poem That Took The Place Of A MountainThere it was, word for word, The poem that took the place of a mountain. He breathed its oxygen, Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table. It reminded him how he had needed A place to go to in his own direction How he had recomposed the pines, Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds For the outlook that would be right, Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion: The exact rock where his inexactness Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged Where he could lie and gazing down at the sea, Recognize his unique and solitary home.”

“If sex were all, then every trembling handCould make us squeak, like dolls, the wished-for words.”

“The mind can never be satisfied.”

“There will never be an endTo this droning of the surf.”

“It is never the thing but the version of the thing.”