I think Ginsberg has done more harm to the craft that I honor and live by than anybody else by reducing it to a kind of mean that enables the most dubious practitioners to claim they are poets because they think, If the kind of thing Ginsberg does is poetry, I can do that.
James Dickey

I want you all to stand; will you do that for me, please?
James Dickey

He can't imagine the result of the mission because he never saw it.
James Dickey

So much destruction in modern war takes place miles and miles away from the source of the destruction, the human being who has caused it.
James Dickey

To say that its wrong to feel this way is not the point; you do feel it. All you see is a flash of fire and, depending on your altitude, you don't even see that sometimes.
James Dickey

To have guilt you've got to earn guilt, but sometimes when you earn it, you don't feel the guilt you ought to have. And that's what The Firebombing is about.
James Dickey

A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.
James Dickey