Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.

Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

The fear of poetry is the fear.

The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, "Oh, just let me enjoy the poem."

Yes, it is a painful lot to be a poet and to love both God and man by the farthest northern seas!

Poets are the most difficult creatures to work with.

In the old days poets used to go into the factories and the sugar and tobacco plantations and recite to the workers while they were doing their thing. No more. Perhaps it's a fear of intelligence, of language. A fear of self-realization.

"Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes," I dread a Scotchman bringing ancient verse.

One man's vulgarity is another's lyric.

What is more dangerous than to become a poet? which is, as some say, an incurable and infectious disease.

Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.

Le poète est vraiment voleur de feu.

[O]ne man's vulgarity is another's lyric.