“So most of my life has been lived in hell.”

“What power has love but forgiveness?In other wordsby its interventionwhat has been donecan be undone.What good is it otherwise?”

“You remember I had a strong inclination all my life to be a painter. Under different circumstances I would rather have been a painter than to bother with these god-damn words. I never actually thought of myself as a poet but I knew I had to be an artist in some way.”

“My surface is myself.Under whichto witness, youth isburied. Roots?Everybody has roots.”

“I prefer not to starve, to live by the practice of medicine, which combines the best features of both science and philosophy with that imponderable and enlightening element, disease, unknown in its normality to either. But, like Pasteur, when he was young, or anyone else who has something to do, I wish I had more money for my literary experiments.”William Carlos Williams, c. 1931”

“Hold back the edges of your gown, Ladies, we are going through hell.”

“I would say poetry is language charged with emotion. It's words, rhythmically organized . . . A poem is a complete little universe. It exists separately. Any poem that has any worth expresses the whole life of the poet. It gives a view of what the poet is.”