I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

The future is always beginning now.

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

I feel that anything is possible in a poem.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.

It's funny how things work out.Trouble is, I'm still not laughing.

Life is too short to cower.

When the sleep appears like a ghost, all the reality disappears!

I'm old enough to remember the end of World War II. On Aug. 14, 1946, a year after the Japanese were defeated, most newspapers and magazines had single articles commemorating the end of the war.

The number one reason for the death of young actors' careers is people get so used to seeing them playing that one character that they can't accept them as anyone else.

God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.

The sea is certainly common to all.

I'll write you a check. I'll write you a check. How do you spell Sheamus?

I want to perform well.

It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything.