“Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all.And pile them high at GettysburgAnd pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.Shovel them under and let me work.Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.”

“I speak of new cities and new peopleI tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,a sun dropped in the west.I tell you there is nothing in the worldonly an ocean of tomorrows.a sky of tomorrows.I am a brother of the cornhuskers who sayat sundown:Tomorrow is a day.”- Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers”

“When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.”

“When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.”

“We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.”

“I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.”

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.”

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

“Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.”

“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.”

“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.”