Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to you.

Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

There is a comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.

What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time?

It's impossible to feel good about yourself if you are doing things that you aren't proud of. . . . It's essential that you . . . [do] things you can respect and admire.

I live in Santa Cruz. I moved here in 1974 and couldn't leave.

Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.

So much inspires me. People living their lives with courage, beauty of all kinds, nature in all its aspects, people I love and people I hardly know, and, of course, other poets.

If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.

In the battle of DNAs, your DNA will always win against the DNA of your father.

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

When I remember my mother, it makes me really sad. But, when I remember my father, it makes me smile.

Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic.

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.

A country is as strong, really, as its citizens. And I think that mental and physical health - mental and physical vigor - go hand in hand.

With the Synod Assembly, therefore, I heartily recommend to the Church's pastors and to the People of God the practice of Eucharistic Adoration, both individually and in community

But do you ever think of me, when you lie? Lie down in your bed, your bed of lies.

Every legislative limitation upon utterance, however valid, may in a particular case serve as an inroad upon the freedom of speech which the Constitution protects.

I want everybody who is watching to come to the Academy Awards with us. I'm going to pay for the bus.