I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that's where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.

I grew up in the prolonged survival of the great age of the horse, with harness and saddle and sleigh bells and horse pictures, not as antiques but the facts of our lives.

Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

The best lies were always mixed with truth.

I like the concept that people are alive.

It’s rather like the economic crash some years ago, many were impacted by it and their vibrational output slowed right down. They believed in the crash so were vacuumed in to it!

Success demands singleness of purpose.

I know that the odds are against a marriage lasting 60 years.

As I say to people, never say never.

Ambitious people know that everything they do and every discipline they adhere to, form the links in the chain of events that will lead them to their final destination.

I think that Instagram suits me. People know I like to use it all the time.

I beg You, O my God, to be my life, my ship, my haven. You have made me ascend the cross of Your Son and I struggle to accept it as best I can. I am sure that I shall never come down from it.

For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.