The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.

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.

Education is not limited to any age. You can begin to learn.

Just because you shot Jesse James...don't make you Jesse

Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya:For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.

People like to think the worst. They like to have hushed gossip sessions and point their fingers at someone's problems that are more obvious than their own.

In America, we have a government that is now run by white nationalists, by billionaires, by incredible misogynists.

Our hands imbibe like roots, so i place them on what is beautiful in this world. And I fold them in prayer, and they draw from the heavens light

The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.

I can make men follow me to hell.

There was a reason why there was only a single stairway to heaven, but an entire highway to hell.

How do Ferrari know what I'm doing next year when I don't know what I'm doing next week?