Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matters like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.

The job of the poet is to use language effectively, his own language, the only language which is to him authentic.

The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky.

As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.

It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.

There is nothing beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will.

My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. ... it filled me with soul satisfying joy.

Somewhere the sense makes copper roses steel roses — The rose carried weight of love but love is at an end — of roses It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.

To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.

Modern Western culture has become a mixture of paganism and Christianity. We are a blend of both. We talk of God, but we often act as though we are atheists.

I saw in a blue haze all the world poured flat and pale between the mountains

Royalty is my identity. Servanthood is my assignment. Intimacy with God is my life source.

Phillip is the Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead.

True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.

I just remember there was one rule: If you've got faults, we expect you to be working on it. And we are here for you. People would welcome each other then. We don't do that anymore. We don't care.

You can always tell when you are on the road to success; it's uphill all the way.

How does one get bored of life?

We don't need any troops abroad-they don't help our defense.