An ethical man doesn't need a consensus of his allies in order to act against something he finds reprehensible.

Man is what he reads.

A writer is seldom satisfied with the condition he finds himself in. We're all given to fretting a lot.

I do not believe in political movements. I believe in personal movement, that movement of the soul when a man who looks at himself is so ashamed that he tries to make some sort of change - within himself, not on the outside.

It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.

It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he fears banality worse than anything, and therefore, he uses free verse - though free verse is no guarantee against banality.