The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry. – Philip Levine
Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. Youll have that readership. Keep going until you know youre doing work thats worthy. And then see what happens. Thats my advice. – Philip Levine
I realized poetrys the thing that I can do cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity. – Philip Levine
Therell always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory. – Philip Levine
It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes upon itself a face of pain; and some of our grieves… have their source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling compassion as the common inheritance of us all. – Joseph Conrad