Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.

Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder.

There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.

I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the brotherhood of loss.

The spiritual desire for poetry can be overwhelming, so much do I need it to experience and name my own perilous depths and vast spaces, my own well-being.

But, something has to be worked through formally as well as emotionally. Now, when those two things come together I've got something, I think, that I can be proud of.

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action.

I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave.

But, the best times I have found, in my life, are late at night or early in the morning and I think it's because you're outside the social realm.

Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.

Forgiveness is a funny thing, it warms the heart and cools the sting.

Money is always there but the pockets change it is not in the same pockets after a change and that is all there is to say about money.

Never ever doubt in magic. The purest honest thoughts come from children, ask any child if they believe in magic and they will tell you the truth.

We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead. We tried to remove the barriers to escape poverty, and inadvertently built a trap.

Retirement should be a happier time, conditioned upon not being ill.

People who need to believe in deities can find them everywhere they look.

It's impossible to measure the type of mental strength and determination that's required to be an elite wrestler.

Just what you want to be, you will be in the end.

I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going.

I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children.