Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.

Hearing that the same men who brought us 'South Park' were mounting a musical to be called 'The Book of Mormon,' we were tempted to turn away, as from an inevitable massacre.

One does not become a guru by accident.

Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.

In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.

My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.

English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as far as we decide to say that the English language extends.

God is in the sadness and the laughter, in the bitter and the sweet.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Yes, and when the love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.

The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.

The U.S. can no longer be the sheriff for the whole world. We can't be everywhere, and we can't always use military boots on the ground. We have to plan with people who have boots on the ground.

Let me be clear about this. I don't have a drug problem. I have a police problem.

If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it.

And that does concern me, because we're not getting enough back for our taxes that we're paying. I think we really have to look at the whole sort of area.

Writing in a lot of ways feels more like excavation than construction. It feels like you're uncovering this thing bit by bit, discovering what it is, instead of constructing it upwards.

A computer can have so much more in its brain that a human can.