“Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.”

Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.

A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell of rotting apples, And grow a fair amount of nettles.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.

I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.

Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.

I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished No more durable than old customs, family rituals, Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.

A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.

All too often, we spend our days waiting for the ideal path to appear in front of us. We forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting.

When we try to look farther into the universe we come to what appears to be the end of space but actually it’s the beginning of time.

All I have going is my looks. When my beauty goes, I’m through.

I’m no syllogism incarnate, but my wife makes me look like Immanuel Kant.

You look at me like supper, and I just want to be your last one this time.

People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.

And she was fair as is the rose in May.

A frowning face can’t bring out the beauty that you are.