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

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.

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.

Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral.

There is a difference between right and wrong, always was and always will be, but each man's wrong and each man's right are different.

...the man to love rarely coincides with the hour of loving.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.

In Desert Storm, we had too many troops; in Afghanistan probably not enough for the major commitment we have made.

I felt guilty because I survived.

The best is yet to come, and won't that be fine? You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine.

I recall that, the first time I met a Geordie speaker, it was some days before I could understand a single word he was saying.

You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

I watch documentaries for information. I watch films to be entertained.

There is nothing more innately human than the tendency to transmute what has become customary into what has been divinely ordained.