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Quotes by Poet

"For we, when we feel, evaporate: oh, webreathe ourselves out and away: from ember to ember,yielding us fainter fragrance."


"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply."

"We shouldn't have got married, really. Shouldn't have got married. Too young. Not ready for it."

"I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love."

"Were it not better to forget than to remember and regret?"

"Our poems will have failed if our readers are not brought by them beyond the poems."

"Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance."

"Spring has many American faces. There are cities where it will come and go in a day and counties where it hangs around and never quite gets there. Summer is drawn blinds in Louisiana, long winds in Wyoming, shade of elms and maples in New England."

"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."

"And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so."

"I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them."

"The balance of private good and general welfare is at the bottom of civilized morals; but the morals of the Heroic Age are founded on individuality, and on nothing else."

"Your uniqueness is the greatest gift you will ever receive in life."

"We never know how high we areTill we are called to rise;And then, if we are true to plan,Our statures touch the skies.The heroism we reciteWould be a daily thing,Did not ourselves the cubits warpFor fear to be a king."

"O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place."

"I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry."

"The earthquake of discomfort you feel moving inside of you when someone insults you is your own insecurity."

"The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world."

"It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation."


"Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers."

"I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened."
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