Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that's where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.

I grew up in the prolonged survival of the great age of the horse, with harness and saddle and sleigh bells and horse pictures, not as antiques but the facts of our lives.

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

Corncobs are the greatest fire-making tinder.

I will survive!

Failing is never too early, success is never too late.

Desire, Desire, Desire!Desire to love, Desire to live, Desire to learn, Desire to dream, Desire to give, Desire to forgive, Desire to grow.

Censorship laws are blunt instruments, not sharp scalpels. Once enacted, they are easily misapplied to merely unpopular or only marginally dangerous speech.

Rhythmic motion has become the carrier and creator of almost every ecstatic mood of any significance in human life.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.

My intention was always to direct and writing things just became convenient and happened.

Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.

We all know guys who've had their hearts broken in real life; we just don't usually see it in the movies.