Vade Mecum I want the scissors to be sharp and the table perfectly level when you cut me out of my life and paste me in that book you always carry.

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Nationalism is a type of insanity in which the boundaries of a land replace God.

In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.

Write the poem only you can write.

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest.

While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane.

I don't need encouraging. I do well enough on my own.

No one is safe from nature's savagery, not even the innocent. Only beauty is consistent. Gabrielle envisions a time when the Savage Garden will overtake civilizations and destroy it.

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet whether he eat little or much but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

Every decision we make has to be evaluated in light of our life-changing commitment to being a servant of Christ and His kingdom.

I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be.

You don't have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that.

Death destroys the body, as the scaffolding is destroyed after the building is up and finished. And he whose building is up rejoices at the destruction of the scaffolding and of the body.

He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.

We all have an escape. Mine was theater.

I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.