"We don't attempt to have any theme for a number of the anthology, or to have any particular sequence. We just put in things that we like, and then we try to alternate the prose and the poetry"

"The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes"

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance"

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas"

"I think Ginsberg has done more harm to the craft that I honor and live by than anybody else by reducing it to a kind of mean that enables the most dubious practitioners to claim they are poets because they think, If the kind of thing Ginsberg does is poetry, I can do that"

"I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation"

"Personality is everything in art and poetry"

"Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry"

"I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention"

"Nothing truly convincing - which would possess thoroughness, vigor, and skill - has been written against the ancients as yet; especially not against their poetry"

"If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul"