We are on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

What the mass media offer is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable.