My life is like water that has passed the mill; it turns no wheel.

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying in the darkness, and we know no death.

Spring, the crudest and fairest of the seasons, will come again. And the strange and buried men will come again, in flower and leaf the strange and buried men will come again, and death and the dust will never come again, for death and the dust will die.

All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.

[H]e had heard an inarticulate promise: he had been pierced by Spring, that sharp knife.

Is not this the true romantic feeling—not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you?

The Hudson River is like old October and tawny Indians in their camping places long ago; it is like long pipes and old tobacco; it is like cool depths and opulence; it is like the shimmer of liquid green on summer days.

The radio is now something people listen to while they are doing something else.

Poets are not supposed to write epics any longer, despite the fact that the only poets who have endured and will endure are poets who have written epics.