... Kindness, sweetest of the small notes in the world's ache, most modest & gentle of the elements entered man before history and became his daily connection, let no man tell you otherwise.

Friends are not made, but recognized.

At the time, there were very few foreign names in the press and they were all factory workers. I thought I'd never get a job at a university with a foreign name.

I fell in love with social work, and that was my undoing as a poet.

George Oppen is a tough old bird. If you've never seen what [he] sees, it's because you haven't sat still long enough and looked as he has. The things he sees feel like the gnarled bark of a tree. The tree is there too. You can put your weight against it. It won't give.