If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.

We are suffering from too much sarcasm.

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.

In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.

It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back.

My father used to say superior people never make long visits.

Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.