The only true hope for civilization-the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events and that, whether or not he does so he is responsible for them.

When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.

History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

All that you can imagine you already know.

So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself

All the posters on the walls All the leaflets in the streets Are mutilated, destroyed or run in rain, Their words blotted out with tears, Skins peeling from their bodies In the victorious hurricane.

An important feature of good characterization in a novel is that the characters are dimensionalized and are not all of one piece. Human beings, as Singer noted, have contradictions.

We are never going to get the results and take empowered action when our mindsets are in opposition to our desires

You look at a guy who's being brave. He's afraid or he wouldn't be brave. If he isn't afraid he's stupid.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love something to do and something to hope for.

I do a lot of laughing at my own self in life, so I think I come at things with a pretty easygoing view.

The process of acting is no different [playing human or ape]. You're embodying the character. You're creating the psychology and the physicality. You're living the moment.

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description.

By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.

My son youngest son David's favorite song - he plays guitar - and he likes "Devil Pray." That's his favorite.

I’d like to see a forklift lift a crate of forks. It’d be so damn literal! You are using that machine to it’s exact purpose!