“Is there anything in the universe more beautiful and protective than the simple complexity of a spider’s web?”

Use the smallest word that does the job.

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.

Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.

A poet’s pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.

The best writing is rewriting.

Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education – sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.

When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.

I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention.