“I avoid the looming visitor,Flee him adroitly around corners,Hating him, wishing him well;Lest if he confront me I be forced to say what is in no wise true:That he is welcome; that I am unoccupied;And forced to sit while the potted roses wilt in the crate or the sonnet coolsBending a respectful nose above such dried philosophiesAs have hung in wreaths from the rafters of my house since I was a child.Some trace of kindliness in this, no doubt,There may be.But not enough to keep a bird alive.There is a flaw amounting to a fissureIn such behaviour.”

“I avoid the looming visitor,Flee him adroitly around corners,Hating him, wishing him well;Lest if he confront me I be forced to say what is in no wise true:That he is welcome; that I am unoccupied;And forced to sit while the potted roses wilt in the crate or the sonnet coolsBending a respectful nose above such dried philosophiesAs have hung in wreaths from the rafters of my house since I was a child.Some trace of kindliness in this, no doubt,There may be.But not enough to keep a bird alive.There is a flaw amounting to a fissureIn such behaviour.”

“Beauty is whatever gives joy.”

“The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.”

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”

“April Comes like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers.”

“And if I loved you Wednesday well what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.”

“After all my erstwhile dear my no longer cherished need we say it was no love just because it perished?”

“'Tis not love's going hurts my days but that it went in little ways.”

“Where you used to be there is a hole in the world which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.”

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another- it's one damn thing over and over.”

“I love humanity but I hate people.”