"If you don't know what you want, you won't get it."

"I'm not a person who believes in any kind of afterlife. I'm a person who believes in this life."

"A poem is never a put-up job."

"I never ask of a pupil who has written a poem, 'What does it mean?' I always ask, 'How did you arrive at that?'"

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."