A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.

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 lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

Style is less the man than the way a man takes himself.

How are we to write The Russian novel in America As long as life goes so unterribly?

In heaven we are all ghostwriters, if we write at all.