I still read Donne, particularly his love poems

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.

Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments ­ its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion.

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

What you say about the world reflects more about you and your perception of the world than the world itself.

It"s easier to believe there's a monster under the bed if you've spent the last six months arguing with a monster.

The whole point with type is for you not to be aware it is there. If you remember the shape of a spoon with which you just ate some soup, then the spoon had a poor shape.

With cinema, one of the great lies dating back to its origin was "It's just entertainment! It doesn't make any impact" Like the great Samuel Goldwyn said, "If you've got a message, send a telegram."

Actually, they should just roll it all back get rid of gambling...It destabilizes the U.S. economy

It didn't rain today, so I didn't have to work. Why don't you have to sit around and wait until it rains?

To die for one's country? To die for love? To die for an ideology? But I say unto you that stay away from the death, stay alive!

The Liberal Party of Canada has no monopoly on public service, we have no monopoly on virtue, and we have no monopoly on wisdom.

They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom.

I mean, Scorsese's a genius, and that's one way of shooting.