All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.
Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning – three cheers for the ants.
When I mention somebody, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I identify with him, personally or poetically. I’m extremely happy when I encounter poets who are different than I am. The ones who have their own distinct poetics provide me with the greatest experiences.
They say the first love’s most important. That’s very romantic, but not my experience.
You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.
Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.