The literary world is so full of pretension, and there's such an enormous gap between how seriously poets take themselves and how widely they're ignored by everybody else.

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.

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

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.

Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.

Selfishness at the expense of others is bad. Self-care for the betterment of others is good.

I pray hard work hard and leave the rest to God.

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.

Every hero is the villain of his own story.

It is the life in literature that acts upon life.

I'm married, I have three children, I never hit my wife.

The object of universities is not to make skillful lawyers, physicians or engineers. It is to make capable and cultivated human beings

No one who has ever done anything really great or successful has ever done it simply because he was attracted by what we call a 'reward' or by the fear of what we call a 'punishment.'

I don't have a schedule, but I can write for hours non-stop. If I'm drafting a book, I try and do a chapter a day. I dislike first drafts. Revision is a lot more fun, but it takes years.