A blind man. I can stare at him ashamed, shameless. Or does he know it? No, he is in a great solitude. O, strange joy, to gaze my fill at a stranger's face. No, my thirst is greater than before.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

And you bring your words, But you're just like them, You're unprepared 'Cause you don't know the terrain

I hope I'm not sitting on a bench in a retirement home talking about what was: "Oh, I worked with this guy and that guy." I hope I'm still doing it for a really long time.

He is also a victim of some injustice; he usually tries to be alone, in order to show his pain to others.

Performances have a bit of a life and a time scale to themselves.

Do as you like with me. I'm your parcel. I have only our address on me. Open me, or readdress me.

Believe in your dreams and that anything is possible.

Regrets are so far from reality.

The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets.

We are too apt to love praise, but not to deserve it.