Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz:

“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given
to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably
you have to think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you
have made to the world in acknowledgement of the gift you have
been given, which is the gift of life itself. And I think the
world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance
of the body of work each artist produces. It is not an expression
of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest
manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”