A poem is a small machine made out of words.

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.

The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky.

As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

There is nothing beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will.

My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. ... it filled me with soul satisfying joy.

Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses — The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end — of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.

I know I wrote letters to people with no address on this earth, I know that you are dead. But I hear you. I hear all of you. We were here. Our lives matter.

This is not the place!

It was mortifying to find how strong the habit of idle speech may become in one’s self. One need not always be saying something in this noisy world.

Start writing the things that you are reading or that you want to be published doing.

I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.

It's not about one person doing one big thing ... It's about a lot of people doing small things that really make the difference.

I've been doing interviews for years, and in all that time, I've virtually never read one and gone, 'Yep, factually and tonally that's exactly what happened.' Pretty much never.

Maybe I'll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris.

I watch so many movies and I find a lot of them very predictable, and also, a little bit playing it safe.

The key to a good relationship is the key. Give me back the key.