"I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering."

"The only certain freedom’s in departure."

"I'm a believer in the literal word. I think it's the literal word that counts."

"A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

"I often say that I am a conservative. I am not a reactionary. I am a conservative. I am not a liberal. I am not a progressive. I am a conservative."