Teaching poetry, teaching as such, is worthy - if back breaking.

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

Man needs air, man needs water, man needs food and man needs adventure also! Adventure is a medicine for the infinite boredom.

The MLK Shabbat Suppers focused on the theme of educational inequity, which Dr. King considered inextricably linked to the struggle for equality and justice.

Money coming in says I've made the right marketing decisions

There's a lot of fiction from that period that we're nostalgic for.

Writing is fifty years behind painting.

Revenge has a way of corroding you, the revenger. You know it doesn't heal you.

Marriage is a duet or duel.

I don’t have to do nothing you say, you old heifer cow. And you are old. Really, really old. And a cow, too. (Simi)

Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.