I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

Embrace the freedom serenity brings!

The changeless is what knows the change, the changeless is unconditioned

It's amazing and sad what we have to do to survive sometimes.

When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's river and streams that country is no longer fit to live in.

Kill them with success and bury them with a big smile

I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third place, and teaching the fourth.

What was the name of that dog on "Rin Tin Tin"?

Well, it's true that I've never been solitary, although I spend a lot of time alone. I've never felt lonely or been shy.

I don't care if you think I'm racist. I just want you to think I'm thin.