Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Poetry even when apparently most fantastic is always a revolt against artifice a revolt in a sense against actuality.

Poetry is a sword of lightning ever unsheathed which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.

All one's inventions are true you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred and when they meet upon the same road one of them has to give place.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

When truth has no burning then it is philosophy when it gets burning from the heart it becomes poetry.

I am two fools I know for loving and for saying so in whining poetry.