Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs – no regular hours, so many temptations!
There are some people whom we envy not because they are rich or handsome or successful, although they may be all or any of these, but because everything they are or do seems to be all of a piece, so that even if they wanted to they could not be or do otherwise.
All the untidyactivity continues, awful but cheerful.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I’m sure it’s a good one – and the same goes for paintings.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.
Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Heaven is not like flying or swimming, but has something to do with blackness and a strong glare.
What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.
And as to experience-well, think how little some good poets have had, or how much some bad ones have.
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.