In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

All I know is a door into the dark

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.

Distance sometimes lets you know who is worth keeping, and who is worth letting go.

Don’t let your society and environment dictate what you do with your time

Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.

Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.

The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves.

After Hollywood, you know if people are interested in you or in the fact that you've been in a movie. You know who your real friends are.

People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.

But wishing our Kansas soldiers 'God speed' is not enough. We need to comfort, care for, and protect their families. And we should ease the financial burdens that these families often face

Plenty and peace breed cowards; hardness ever of hardiness is mother.