My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

The internet is just a world passing notes around a classroom.

An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.

never wait for anyone to make you happy

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.

What's it like to kiss Mel Gibson?

Instead, most colleges are studies in obsolescence.

If this is dying, I don't think much of it.

Confidence, not paper or digital money, is the key currency in a capitalist system.

We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused.

The reason artists want to have works in museums is that we want our works to be seen by as many people as possible and we want our ideas to be understood in more complicated ways.