“Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.”
“It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.”
“A poem should be palpable and mute / As a globed fruit, / Dumb / As old medallions to the thumb . . . / A poem should be equal to / Not true . . . / A poem should not mean / But be.”