“The way through the worldIs more difficult to find than the way beyond it.”

“A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.”

“People should like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if poets wrote it.”

“I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.”

“Poetry is a finikin thing of airThat lives uncertainly and not for longYet radiantly beyond much lustier blurs.”

“THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATEIClear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The lightIn the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snowAt the end of winter when afternoons return.Pink and white carnations - one desiresSo much more than that. The day itselfIs simplified: a bowl of white, Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,With nothing more than the carnations there.IISay even that this complete simplicityStripped one of all one's torments, concealedThe evilly compounded, vital IAnd made it fresh in a world of white,A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,Still one would want more, one would need more,More than a world of white and snowy scents.IIIThere would still remain the never-resting mind,So that one would want to escape, come backTo what had been so long composed.The imperfect is our paradise.Note that, in this bitterness, delight,Since the imperfect is so hot in us,Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.”

“Of the Surface of ThingsIn my room, the world is beyond my understanding;But when I walk I see that it consists of three or fourHills and a cloud.”