A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it.

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

The ways we miss our lives are life.

The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.

Read at whim! Read at whim!

We can't tell our life from our wish

It is better to entertain an idea than to take home to live with you for the rest of your life.

Pain comes from the darkness. And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

Except from the Americans—but every pearl has its oyster.

Everyone has to start somewhere. So get out there and start.

The one day you don't go into practice and use that day to the fullest is the one day someone is going to beat you.

We need more foreign reach; no question about that. And we're working on getting that. We need more people abroad; we need some more bureaus... That is really an important job.

An athlete learns how to hold her breath, but that doesn't work in singing. You have to learn to relax.

Success is the continuing achievement of becoming the person God wants you to be and accomplishing the goals God has helped you set.

Annual earnings in the fast-food industry are well below the income needed for self-sufficiency, and fast-food industry jobs are also much less likely than other jobs to provide health benefits.

The last thing I would accuse a cat of is innocence.

I'm not a real smart guy. But I've got enough brains to realize that when I'm 60 years old and play a sport, that it's downhill.

You are fortunate to live here. If I were your President, I would levy a tax on you for living in San Francisco!

I tend to close my eyes when I look at people anymore.