Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say, 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.'

Then he asked the question that you are all itching to ask me: 'How can you tell good poetry from bad?' I answered, 'How does one tell good fish from bad? Surely by the smell? Use your nose.'

A poem is a form of refrigeration that stops language going bad.

A poem is never a put-up job so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a love sickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

The reader who is illuminated is, in a real sense, the poem.

In communist countries, you execute your poets. In the free world, the poets execute themselves.

When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

God has made me his poem.

Poetry is the stuff in books that doesn't quite reach the margins.