You dont have to suffer to be a poet adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. – John Ciardi
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old. – John Ciardi
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. – John Ciardi
What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down. – John Ciardi