I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

The language of sword is less powerful than the language of word, but most ofthe people understand the language of sword with greater power than thelanguage of word.

The future is of greater interest to me than the past, since that is where I intend to spend the rest of my life.

Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!

Those people who wake up and they're just beautiful, they're just born that way. Well that ain't me. I gotta work for everything I've got.

Teaching peers is one of the best ways to develop mastery.

I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.

As souls must cry when they awaken in tiny babies and find themselves far from heaven

Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that.

When we get to what happens when we die, we don't have any video footage. So let's at least be honest that we are speculating, because we are.

... the moral equal of our Founding Fathers.