Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

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.

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

Any healthy man can go without food for two days -- but not without poetry.