"It's complicated, being an American, Having the money and the bad conscience, both at the same time. Perhaps, after all, this is not the right subject for a poem."

"All that grave weight of America Cancelled! Like Greece and Rome. The future in ruins! JH Honesty seems to me to be the best legacy I can leave the world."

"When I was in hospital I found I could hardly read or writ. In these circumstances I began to write poems. I found that poetry was the only kind of writing in which I could express my thoughts. One night I dreamed I was lying on the bank of a canal, under machine gun fire. The next morning I wrote it out , Carentan O Caretan, and as I wrote I realized it was not a dream, but the memory of my first time under fire"