Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.

Good science and good art are always about a condition of awe . . . I don’t think there is any other function for the poet or the scientist in the human tribe but the astonishment of the soul.

The fist clenched round my heartloosens a little, and I gaspbrightness; but it tightensagain. When have I ever not lovedthe pain of love? But this has movedpast love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss.Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

As human beings we’ve certainly suffered the loss of awe, the loss of sacredness, and the loss of the fact that we’re not here— we’re not put on earth— to shape it anyway we want... You want something to happen with poetry, but it doesn’t make anything happen. So then somebody says, “What’s the use of poetry?” Then you say, “Well, what’s the use of a cloud? What’s the use of a river? What’s the use of a tree?” They don’t make anything happen.

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.