My persona is less miserable than a lot of contemporary poetry speakers are.

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Nationalism is a type of insanity in which the boundaries of a land replace God.

In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.

Write the poem only you can write.

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest.

While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane.

It's amazing to hear, as a voice matures and then starts to decline, what kind of emotion is still conveyed by a really good vocalist.

I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's.

Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

Today I share my abundance with someone who needs a gift of kindness.

If I pull from places of faith, joy and gratitude, then I have the wind of creativity behind me. And, my work in the world is much more effective.

The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies.

You can't outdo 'Street Songs' and I didn’t even try. [It] had that special magic that comes with timing and good vibrations and you can't even try to capture that exactly again.

Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity.

The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery.

Companies over-emphasize idea generation and under-emphasize idea execution when it comes to innovation.