“I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I...”

“ the river sliding along its banks, darker now than the sky descending a last time to scatter its diamonds into these black waters that contain the day that passed, the night to come. Excerpt from...”

“Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.”

“I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back. ”

“There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.”

“How weightlesswords are when nothing will do.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”