My body was braille for the creeping influences.

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.

show me all the parts of you that you do not love so i know where to begin.

We do not last, she thinks. In the end, only the stories survive.

There’s no need to sharpen your pencils any more. Even the dull ones can make a mark.

A dog to vomit does turn, A fool to folly but return, The wise err and learn, Gaining from each burn.

The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.

The three ingredients of a successful union between two ... humor, commitment & undying love.

Idioms are a big thing in Ireland. They want to fill the time, to show how good they are at talk - it's a talk-off

I don't know if I'll ever get used to hearing my name being mentioned alongside all these other legendary artists that have come before me.

I'm always writing - its what I like to do. But when I'm not writing, I'm reading.

The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.