The composer does not want the self-sufficiency of a richly complex text: he or she wants to feel that the text is something in need of musical setting.

The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.

Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done.

The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.

Babies are not brought by storks and poets are not produced by workshops.

Hearing that the same men who brought us 'South Park' were mounting a musical to be called 'The Book of Mormon,' we were tempted to turn away, as from an inevitable massacre.

One does not become a guru by accident.

Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.

In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.

My feeling is that poetry will wither on the vine if you don't regularly come back to the simplest fundamentals of the poem: rhythm, rhyme, simple subjects - love, death, war.

English poetry begins whenever we decide to say the modern English language begins, and it extends as far as we decide to say that the English language extends.

Love brings the turnaround.

If you always make the right decision, the safe decision, the one most people make, you will be the same as everyone else.

M dad was a boxer, so he had this fierce, physical presence.

Guy Gavriel Kays Tigana is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best fantasy novel ever written. Its beautifully written, the characters are unforgettable, the worldbuilding is exquisite.

Let no man trust the first false step of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice, whose steep descent in last perdition ends.

I am an animator. I feel like I'm the manager of a animation cinema factory. I am not an executive. I'm rather like a foreman, like the boss of a team of craftsmen. That is the spirit of how I work.

What I possess, seems far away to me, and what is gone becomes reality.

The truth is that the whole system of beliefs which comes in with the story of the fall of man ... is gently falling out of enlightened human intelligence.

When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It's all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.

Be careful of success; it has a dark side.