In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Nationalism is a type of insanity in which the boundaries of a land replace God.

Write the poem only you can write.

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest.

While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane.

So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

May I have a few friends and many books - both true.

As to your families my counsel is, never lay down your authority to a wife or child, but treat them so kindly they will never want to leave you.

I'm only interested in poetry.

The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive.

Keep your heel, head and standards high.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,'Twas the 'Vengeance of the Little Yellow God'.

He on whom heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it.

A broken fortune is like a falling column; the lower it sinks, the greater weight it has to sustain.

There's a lot of things that I don't promote and I do promote mescaline. They open places in your mind that other things don't and if you're smiling, why not?