“None but a poet can translate a poet.”

“If, in reading translations, you come across a haiku that does not convey to you any emotion at all, do not blame yourself or the poet. Blame it on the translator!”

“I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into a new tongue.”

“The essence of art can never change. I'm convinced you can't talk about art. At best, you will have a translation, a poetic paraphrase, & as for that I'll leave that to the poets.”

“The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.”

“The poet is a god, or, the young poet is a god. The old poet is a tramp.”

“To a poet nothing can be useless.”

“When the house is burning down around the poet's head, on grounds of what if any dispensation can the poet continue the poem?”

“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.”

“A Poet is needed to fully interpret a poet”