“A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/...the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.”

“He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.”

“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm.”

“It sounds to me like the gods of sneaking out have smiled upon Lucy.”

“The walls are cracked and water runs upon them within threads without sound, black and glistening as blood.”

“It is not certain whether the effects of totalitarianism upon verse need be so deadly as its effects on prose. There is a whole series of converging reasons why it is somewhat easier for a poet than a prose writer to feel at home in an authoritarian society.[...]what the poet is saying- that is, what his poem "means" if translated into prose- is relatively unimportant, even to himself. The thought contained in a poem is always simple, and is no more the primary purpose of the poem than the anecdote is the primary purpose of the picture. A poem is an arrangement of sounds and associations, as a painting is an arrangement of brushmarks. For short snatches, indeed, as in the refrain of a song, poetry can even dispense with meaning altogether.”