"Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but all are overwhelmed in eternal night, unwept, unknown, because they lack a sacred poet."

"My poems are hymns of praise to the glory of life."

"You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone."

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."

"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

"A poem is no place for an idea."

"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose."

"A poet's hope: to be,like some valley cheese,local, but prized elsewhere."

"Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance."