I think a lot of American poets are swimming-pool Soviets. A lot of them have taken the comfortable, self-protective route too often. I know that I certainly have. That's easy to do.

The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something done about it.

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

Nothing will change until we demolish the "we-they" mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.

It would be nice if all the Republicans could put poetry in a little box and put the box under the bed and sit on it, but they can't.

I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center.

Of course, there are some people who behave rudely. Allen Ginsberg used to like to get up in public and take his clothes off. I don't do that, but I liked Allen Ginsberg. He was a nice guy.

George W. Bush is using language that's a mirror image of the language of Osama bin Laden when he says, "We have God on our side. This is the struggle of good against evil."

I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me.

Sometimes people come up and they get infatuated with some little brief imagistic poem or something, and they say, "Oh, I really like your Zen poems." And I say, "Which ones are not Zen poems?"

Each of us as poets, as decent suffering human beings, has to find a way to run our lives that is compassionate toward one another and toward our environment.

Persistence is a writer's best friend disguised as a bully.

I don't want to suggest that controlling pharmaceutical costs is the answer to what ails the U.S. health care system. It isn't.

Live your days on the positive side of life, in tune with your most treasured values. And in each moment you'll have much to live for.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.

It's always better to have too much to read than not enough.

Think What You Do When You Run in Debt: You Give to Another Power over Your Liberty

And the Buddha is the person who's free: free of plans, free of cares.

Knowledge descries; wisdom applies.

I'm not exactly sure how many kids I have, but yes, I do miss them officially, for the record. In case any of them are listening, I love you.

And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other.