"Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up."

"I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light."

"The one thing it's for is to be a poem, and it's nothing else. And it's not for anything but that."

"A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."