I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

Intuition is the highest form of intelligence, transcending all individual abilities and skills

Being there doesn't mean I'm present. I exist only in words. I want to be transmuted fully to white page and ink.

The wisdom of the Moon is greater than the wisdom of the Earth, because the Moon sees the universe closer than the Earth can see it!

God gave the Angels wings and humans chocolate. Mrs. Miracle

I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no time for writing, which is why I went to Europe to live in 1961.

If it ain't fun don't do it.

I always see other people as predecessors and admire them.

Life is too short not to do a little practical joking.

If you believe you can shed pounds quickly by force of will and deprivation, you will in all likelihood not only regain the ones you lost, but add a few more besides.

Prayer is - loving conversation with the One who has invited us into His embrace.