I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.

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.

Whether we walk among our people or alone among the hills, happiness in life's walking depends on how we feel about others in our hearts.

If you’re giving to get, all you’ll receive is disappointment. But if you’re giving to give, all you’ll receive is joy.

The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.'

The failure of political leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failure.

My beloved beliebers I'm officially retiring.

I'm kinda doing a lot of stuff.

I learned from my mistakes, I was able to accept the things that were my fault and to be able to grow from that. You have to be able to see growth from your experiences and I've done that.

Of course no president, Democratic or Republican - no president - is above the law, as neither are you, nor I, nor anyone.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

I need one good honky tonk angel to turn my life around.