Quotes from Stanley Kunitz

Memory is each man's poet-in-residence.

You must be careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin.

Poetry is language surprised in the act of changing into meaning.

Poetry is the enemy of the poem.

Poetry today is easier to write but harder to remember.

...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.

A longing for the dance stirs in the buried life.

In a murderous time/the heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking.

The thing that eats the heart is mostly heart.

After all,we are partners in this land,co-signers of a covenant.At my touch the wildbraid of creationtrembles.

I recognize the gods' capricious handAnd write this poem for money, rage, and love.

You have become like us,disgraced and mortal.

Old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race.

In every house of marriagethere's room for an interpreter.

Liebchen,with whom should I quarrelexcept in the hiss of love,that harsh, irregular flame?

In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter.

Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.

Not that you need to be a saint to have visions worth talking about. The most effective prescription, I suspect, is to be a disciplined sinner. Perfection, as Valery noted, is work.

I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.

What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.

I can hardly wait for tomorrow, it means a new life for me each and every day.