When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.

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.

Men make war to get attention. All killing is an expression of self-hate.

Non-cooperation in military matters should be an essential moral principle for all true scientists.

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

You can't judge a book by its cover, can you?

Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them; besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight.

Has creation a final purpose at all, and if so why is it not attained immediately, why does perfection not exist from the very beginning?

Every time I do a movie like 'Finding Neverland' or 'Chocolat' or 'Shakespeare' in Love,' we deal with the creative process, but there's humor and fun along the way. I always love that kind of movie.

We talk about self-expression but need to pause and remember that self-expression requires a self to express.

Listen, my friend. He who loves understands.

I think when we use 'stress', we are often using a kind of dummy word to try to fit many different things into one big category.