The first mark of intelligence, to be sure, is not to start things; the second mark of intelligence is to pursue to the end what you have started.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Everyone thinks you make mistakes when you're young. But I don't think we make any fewer when we're grown up

I don't want you to have to handle it. That's the horror of my past. But you...you're the reality of my present. You're the proof I survived. The prize in the cereal box.

Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.

I'm sure one of the frustrations of being a Western enthusiast of Japanese food and culture is you're confronted every day with the absolute certainty that you will die ignorant.

The girl or the world, you see someone gotta lose. I thought I could have it all, do I really gotta choose?

The spiritual desire for poetry can be overwhelming, so much do I need it to experience and name my own perilous depths and vast spaces, my own well-being.

McDonald's breakfast for under a dollar is actually more expensive than that. You have to factor in the cost of bypass surgery.

I believe that God wants me to be president.

Vladimir Putin is a human rights abuser, responsible for deaths in Ukraine, Georgia and Syria, not to mention curious murders of his political opponents and journalists.