blue bead on the wick, there's that in me that burns and chills, blackening my heart with its soot, I think sometimes not Apollo heard me but a different god.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

The goal of life isn't to make lots of money. Its to make a life that means EXCLUSIVE.

I hate France. It's like the whole country's on a diet

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

Laws cannot be imposed on him who is the master of the law.

The future belongs to the competent

Day by day, we are becoming what we shall be eternally. The spirit who convicts us is also the spirit who consoles.

To a man with an empty stomach food is God

Sometimes I think it's possible to mistake desire for clarity and talking in a no-nonsense way for aggression.

A wicked man in prayer may lift up his hands, but he cannot lift up his face.