“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy. It isn't.”

On the craft and difficulty of poetry · Letter to a high school newspaper, October 26, 1955

• Effort
• Expression
• Poetry

“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.”

On the primacy of feeling over thought · Lecture, i: six nonlectures (commonly attributed)

• Feeling
• Individuality
• Self

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

On the value of selfhood and resistance to conformity · Letter (commonly attributed)

• Courage
• Individuality
• Self