You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

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.

To live an effective life, you have to turn your back on the things of the world

Cause every task of your day to be a sacred ministry to the Lord. however mundane your duties, for you they are a sacrament.

It's been nice knowing you, Clara.'Huh? My brain still a bit shell-shocked.'Say a prayer for me, will you? He gives me a shaky grin. Because I'm pretty sure my parents are going to kill me

I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been known and thought and written in the world.

It's too easy to sum up a person's character in one negative instant, and it doesn't put anything good out into the world.

Such simple and steady acts of kindness are the essence of love, the substance of life. All of us need love; all of us want love. Everything else is a consolation prize. What matters is love.

When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

The President of the United States thinks that for the Japanese opium is more dangerous than war.