"Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better."

"The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it."

"Forgive me, but I'm going to be as rude as a poet has to be."

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

"The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom."