A pure mathematical series would be one in which each term is derived from the preceding term by a rule.

The self is no mystery, the mystery is / That there is something for us to stand on

Those who are not very concerned with art want poems or pictures to record for them something they already know - as one might want a picture of a place he loves.

Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.

The meaning of a poem is in the cadences and the shape of the lines and the pulse of the thought which is given by those lines.

Things explain each other, not themselves.

It is necessary to study these words you have written, for the words have a longer history than you have and say more than you know.

There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.

The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.

[It is not] the poet's business to use verse as an advanced form of rhetoric, nor to give to political statements the aura of eternal truth.

Thus in order to be a "radical" one must be open to the possibility that one's own core assumptions are misconceived.

Sweet pea, you are my favorite hello and my hardest goodbye, and I don't want to go a day without you. Consider that your official invitation

America has the best hand ever dealt to any country on this planet, ever. Yes, we have problems, but you travel around the world, you'll see we have it all.

In the winter of 2012, as my fiftieth birthday approached, I began to write what turned into my autobiography, a look at my own life through the lens of food.

True love is deemed to be the most tender of our emotions, as even the blind and deaf know; but I know, what few believe, that true friendship is more tender still.

I'm also a devoted father, and you see that side of me at the same time.

Every thought was once a poem.

For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage.

What knowledge is there of which man is capable that is not founded on the exterior,--the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?

I came out of the closet very young, and I had to cut my teeth pretty fast.