Money. You don't know where it's been, but you put it where your mouth is. And it talks!

There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images. Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions.

The new year always brings us what we want Simply by bringing us along—to see A calendar with every day uncrossed, A field of snow without a single footprint.

Everyone enjoys stories of double lives and secret identities. Children have Superman; intellectuals have Wallace Stevens.

Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought.

Teach us the names of what we have destroyed.

My blessed California, you are so wise. You render death abstract, efficient, clean. Your afterlife is only real estate, And in his kingdom Death must stay unseen.

Poetry is not a creed or dogma. It is a special way of speaking and listening.

What we conceal Is always more than what we dare confide. Think of the letters that we write our dead.

Being so deeply rooted in one place and culture allows a genuine writer to experiment wildly with the material without ever losing touch with its essence.

To speak from a particular place and time is not provincialism but part of a writer's identity.

The only people we want to blame are ourselves, because it will be ourselves that we rely upon.

It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.

Sure, as long as he ties a 56 lb. weight to each leg.

It's almost like he's started to sound even more exotic the more people started doing him. I don't know why, but there's just something about Al Gore that makes me laugh.

Doggedness depends on emotional traits - enthusiasm and persistence in the face of setbacks - above all else.

I'm sure I could fall in love with a Democrat as easily as a Republican. Some things transcend politics.

In the United States, we can talk about ISIS, but we can't talk about Palestine.

His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us with no other choice.

When you're doing stand-up, you can comment if something fails, get a laugh from that.

It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish.