The sense of flowing, which is so crucial to song, is also crucial to poetry.

Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder.

Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.

There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.

I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the brotherhood of loss.

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.

But, something has to be worked through formally as well as emotionally. Now, when those two things come together I've got something, I think, that I can be proud of.

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action.

I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave.

But, the best times I have found, in my life, are late at night or early in the morning and I think it's because you're outside the social realm.

May the Lord fight your battles for you.

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others

A band is like a marriage, and if you're in a marriage with someone, and you lose yourself in that marriage, the relationship is over, really.

Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.

A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

I’m not the easiest person to live with. I’m kind of a slob.

It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?

Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard?

This aircraft tops everything. All the others look old as compared to this one.

Monetary policy itself cannot sensibly be directed at reducing imbalances.