Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age.

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success.

How to sustain the miracle Of being, that like a muted bell, Or like some ocean-breathing shell, Quivers, intense and still?

Music proposes. Sound disposes.

History Coming too close Is monstrous, like a doll That is alive and bigger than the child Who tries to hold it.

There is no end to grief. Nor no end to poetry.

The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so.

Who, except the poets, reads poetry?

The thing you did to alleviate the loneliness was to take off your clothes and touch someone, even if you didn’t really know the person well.

See yourself what you would like to be known for rather than your current position.

My grandmother would start making her meat sauce at 7 in the morning on Sunday, and within five or six hours, that smell would be all through the house.

By the grace of God, I'll be that man.

All great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman.

A 3K word story might well be done in some caffeine-and-nicotine-fuelled 36 hour session, and at the end of it, there'll be a few passes of editing required, but I basically have a polished draft.

Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.

I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.

Birds evolved from a small raptor like theropod.

It's one that still happens, actually... forgetting a part of a difficult piece. Usually, the chances of it happening are directly proportional to how quiet and attentive the audience is.