I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

Things you call wrong, describe your levels of acceptance and understanding..

The toughest guys have the biggest hearts. The biggest hearts - because they have to be tough to protect it.

Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.

There is nothing to fear from gods, There is nothing to feel in death, Good can be attained, Evil can be endured.

Our generation must fulfill the most noble of duties by ensuring the survival of future generations through the most basic of survival mechanisms - adaptation.

It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion.

A constant interrogation.

Our avian brothers are back to roost on the first leg of their annual sojourn south. Why them and not us? Maybe it's because we humans are meant to be rooted in one spot.

Hippies, hippies... they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and play frisbee!

Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.