God, though this life is but a wraith, Although we know not what we use, Although we grope with little faith, Give me the heart to fight and lose.

Every poet knows the pun is Pierian, that it springs from the same soil as the Muse?a matching and shifting of vowels and consonants, an adroit assonance sometimes derided as jackassonance.

Life, alas, is very drear. Up with the glass! Down with the beer!

Friendship is like love at its best; not blind but sympathetically all-seeing; a support which does not wait for understanding; an act of faith which does not need, but always has, reason.

Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason. But always for money.

Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable in terms of the unforgettable.

Nothing but blackness above And nothing that moves but the cars... God, if you wish for our love, Fling us a handful of stars!

Come, drink the mystic wine of Night, Brimming with silence and the stars; While earth, bathed in this holy light, Is seen without its scars.

Laughter shall drown the raucous shout; And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin, May they be strong to keep hate out And hold love in.

Why has our poetry eschewed The rapture and response of food? What hymns are sung, what praises said For home-made miracles of bread?

From compromise and things half done, Keep me with stern and stubborn pride; And when at last the fight is won, God, keep me still unsatisfied.

When there is faith, the world is balanced.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Many do not realize that we here must die. For those who realize this, quarrels end.

Coffee has always been a significant part of my life. For me, it's a chance to start my day and gather my thoughts - it's fuel for my creative process.

Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose.

The man in our society is the breadwinner; the woman has enough to do as the homemaker, wife and mother.

I'm involved in issues, and issues are about grass-roots politics.

Even those truths that are painful will ultimately increase my wisdom, undergird my strength, make possible my art.

I have this weird thing where all the artists that I find myself engaging with the most are the ones that I have a bone to pick with.

It is wrong to make anyone into an enemy; it is wrong to scare the people of one's own country with that enemy and try to rally some allies on that basis.