The poet's first job of work is to put bread on the table.

Far out of sight forever stands the sea, Bounding the land with pale tranquillity.

And one rose in a tent of sea and gave A darkening shudder; water fell away; The whale stood shining, and then sank in spray.

The land is numb. It stands beneath the feet, and one may come Walking securely, till the sea extends Its limber margin, and precision ends.

The passion to condense from book to book Unbroken wisdom in a single look, Though we know well that when this fix the head, The mind's immortal, but the man is dead.

The rain of matter upon sense Destroys me momently. The score: There comes what will come.

Even though poetry was written for the 'minds ear' as well as the physical ear, the minds ear can be trained only by the other ... which comes back to reading poetry aloud.

Reptilian green the wrinkled throat, Green as a bough of yew the beard; He bent his head, and so I smote

By practice and conviction formed, With ancient stubbornness ingrained, Although her body clung and swarmed, My own identity remained.

Misery is a routine you can learn to live with. It's like rain. Once you're soaked to the skin, you can't get any wetter.

Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life.

Time has come to reconsider the existence of aether in space due to recent developments in science on existence of dark energy in space.

Justice must take account of infinite circumstances which a human being cannot understand.

Engineering is a predictive science, not a manipulative art.

The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.

I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.

I'm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.

I am not a human being, I am dynamite.

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.