The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

All I know is a door into the dark

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.

Did I hear God call me an idiot?

Heavy rains and a good book. A perfect extravagance.

A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably.

You know, if you're an American and you're born at this time in history especially, you're lucky. We all are. We won the world history Powerball lottery...

We only dream of images we already have inside of us.

Love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.

It was moving, but so absurd that I nearly laughed out loud. I imagined a new line of Hallmark cards: "Thank you for not killing my boyfriend, even if it risks killing you.

The system promotes to the top those who don't care about the planet.

A God who fits within the confines of our conception is useless. God cannot be comprehended by man's conception or logic. God is an eternal being who transcends the framework of man's limited logic.

I started rapping because I wanted people to hear what I have to say, I want as many people to hear me as possible, and I do everything in my power to make that pop.