Spring: trees flying up to their birds

Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

A nothing we were, are, shall remain, flowering: the nothing--, the no one's rose.

Reality is not simply there, it does not simply exist: it must be sought out and won.

Poetry is a sort of homecoming.

The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it. Does this very fact not place the poem already here, at its inception, in the encounter, in the mystery of encounter?

Don't sign your name between worlds, surmount the manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain, learn to live.

There's nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.

We are told that when Hölderlin went 'mad,' he constantly repeated, 'Nothing is happening to me, nothing is happening to me.'

German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.

Keep your head high and your skirt down.

The first version of everything is janky.

I think there's an energy about just remaining excited. Like, you can't be excited when you're not doing something new.

And I suddenly think, as I look across the table at him, that these are the days as they will be. This is the future as we see it. The swerve and the static. The confidence and the doubt.

I know I can go out there and play much better than I did yesterday. But to come out with a win is key.

I don't go to places where I'm going to get mobbed.

Pop Art is not painting because painting must have content and emotion.

I like playing that character who brings love to people, who puts people in a place where they're apt to encounter love.

The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men.

I like enthusiasts of any kind.