For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.

I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.

For me, cinema is a vice. I love it intimately.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.

No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.