The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.

Language cares.

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.

A teacher is a person who never says anything once.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.

A lot happens by accident in poetry.

I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks.

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.

I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.