I remember coming upon Philip Larkin in my 20s in the early '60s and when Sylvia Plath's "Ariel" came out it knocked me off my feet.

Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

One writes a poem when one is so taken up by an emotional concept that one is unable to remain silent.

A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

I write poems to find out why I write them

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

I'm reading a manuscript by Rodney Jones, "Village Prodigies",it's one of the best contemporary poetry books I've ever read ever.

Each thing I do, I rush through, so I can do something else.

Baudelaire's L'Héautontimorouménos was long seen to be a sexual sadomasochistic poem, it is now generally accepted that the poem is about writing poetry.

I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

Make sure your fun is not mocking someone’s pain and your enjoyment is not another’s suffering. The melody of your ears must not be the cries of a powerless.

At Berkshire Hathaway we do not like to compete against Chinese manufacturers.

What cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart.

The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.

You are being used as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism.

I just can't read music.

Forget what hurt you but never forget what it thaught you.

The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantelpiece forever.

The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail.

Money - like health, love, happiness, and all forms of success that you want to create for yourself - is the result of living purposefully. It is not a goal unto itself.