For many people, depression is an abrupt change in an otherwise full and happy life. It emerges suddenly and devastates by its very strangeness and pathology.

My life felt so cluttered and obstructed that I could hardly breathe. I inhabited a closed, concentrated world, airless and without exits.

But I do not know what to tell myself. Stuart needs "space" and "time, " as if this were physics and not a human relationship.

Growth is the only evidence of life.

a social conscience is not incompatible with profit.

When it's personal and painful, humble yourself.

Inspiration arrived as a result of profound indolence... I awoke with a start and witnessed as from a seat in a theatre, three acts of a potentially awesome play.

I don't think Obama understands basic economics. Not economics that work. He may understand some theory that someone in Princeton sat and dreamed up, but it's not working.

We continue to be spilled on by consumerism even though we know it doesn't make us happy.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

What about Santa's cookies? I suppose 'parents' eat those, too?

The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.