''“Should we have stayed home and thought of here?” ''
''“...what the Man-Moth fears most he must do..” ''
''“I was made at right angles to the world and I see it so. I can only see it so.” ''
''“Close, close all night the lovers keep. They turn together in their sleep, Close as two pages in a book that read each other in the dark. Each knows all the other knows, learned by heart from head to toes.” ''
''“Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?” ''
''“If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so Im sure its a good one—and the same goes for paintings. ” ''
''“--Even losing you (a joking voice, a gesture/ I love) I shant have lied. Its evident/ the art of losings not too hard to master/ though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.” ''
''“Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!” ''
''“I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this.” ''
''“Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams. Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.” ''
''“[Marianne Moore] once remarked, after a visit to her brother and his family, that the state of being married and having children had one enormous advantage: "One never has to worry about whether one is doing the right thing or not. There isnt time. One is always having to go to the market or drive the children somewhere. There isnt time to wonder Is this right or isnt it?”''
''“Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.” ''
''“Icebergs behoove the soul (both being self-made from elements least visible) to see themselves: fleshed, fair, erected, indivisible.” ''
''“Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?” ''
''“All the untidy activity continues, awful but cheerful.”''
''“Why shouldnt we, so generally addicted to the gigantic, at last have some small works of art, some short poems, short pieces of music [...], some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?” ''
''“But they made me realize more than I ever had the rarity of true originality, and also the sort of alienation it might involve.”''
''“The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.” ''
''“Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)” ''
''“But he sleeps on the top of his mast with his eyes closed tight. The gull inquired into his dream, which was, "I must not fall. The spangled sea below wants me to fall. It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.” ''
''“Is it right to be watching strangers in a play / in this strangest of theatres? / What childishness is it that while theres a breath of life / in our bodies, we are determined to rush / to see the sun the other way around? ”''
''“Loves the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went down” ''
''All my life I have lived and behaved very much like [the] sandpiper—just running down the edges of different countries and continents, "looking for something" ... having spent most of my life timorously seeking for subsistence along the coastlines of the world.''
''“One shouldnt get too involved with people who cant possibly understand one” ''
''“Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.”''
''“The art of losing isnt hard to master.” ''
''“I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen.” ''
