The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

There's no shame in honest suffering, my dear.

I play the piano and write music.

Thought is the ultimate tonal. Each thought is like a dike that blocks out the nagual.

School yourself to demureness and patience. Learn to inure yourself to drudgery in science. Learn, compare, collect the facts.

To achieve great things requires that we become great people.

Computer languages differ not so much in what they make possible, but in what they make easy.

I've always been counted out. I've always had people believing I didn't belong. I think that has made me work a little harder.

I guess I'm not really fond of just chit-chatting. I want to learn something and have an experience.

Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension.

I considered the prevention of war as the test of our security policy; in addition to being able to rapidly and forcefully end any war forced upon us.