Quote

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.

I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch.

Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

Every guy should be the owner of a really nice pen. When you put your thoughts down, or whenever you're going to share something with someone, it means something if it bleeds out in a nice ink.