If I am going out into the unknown, it might as well be the really unknown.

What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.

The creation of art requires descent into the dark.

What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin. Words are a gift to the dead and a warning to the living.

-It's extremely cool how the words can stay the same but their meaning can change.-Because the reader changes.-EXACTLY

Do you always travel with such cumbersome books?''I don't trust anyone who wouldn't.

You know what is beautiful? A real conversation with a real person.

To call that writing, madam, is an insult to quills and ink across the world.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry that is prose - words in their best order poetry - the best words in their best order.

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.

The key, I suppose, has less to do with insight than with willingness, the former being relatively useless without the latter.

Knowing how to live is not something we have to teach children. Knowing how to live is something we have to be careful not to take away from them.

Compassion is concern of others' well being.

Sometimes the entire thing comes out in one burst. Sometimes you hack away at a thing for years before you get something that satisfies you.

You will never truly know yourself or the strength of your relationships until both have been tested by adversity.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.