He said, 'I can't teach someone how to write,' ... He just thought if you were a poet, you wrote poetry.

was very compassionate. He wrote a lot about people down on their luck.

He loved this country, ... But he despaired for it.

Someone once asked him, 'How many poets do you know there?' ... He said, 'Thank God, none.'

I wanted him to stop, ... I tried not to nag. What good does it do? It just causes dissension.

He was fascinated, ... He and Betty Kray [a former director of the Academy of American Poets] would talk about baking bread all the time.