I admit I keep a clichéd ironic distance with many things in the world, but Brooklyn is not one of them.

Both the poet and scholar are trying to learn something. The poem for me is a pursuit. Some of the answers are within. Some of the answers are without.

I tend to integrate poet and scholar is by ironizing the scholarship. My hope is to disturb that space between the two so they can coexist in a kind of mutual uncertainty.

Cleave to the common good. We are all responsible for bringing about the time of great suffering, for its continuing.

Once I realize that the tune I’m whistling in my head is the theme that’s driving my heart, I suddenly realize that the most important question I can ask is, “What are the lyrics?

God’s forgiveness is greater than the devil’s hate.

One of the happiest moments in a father's life is when his children treat him like a brother.

Author says the ineffectual U.S. Navy of two centuries ago lost two thirds as many men to duelist bullets as to sea hazards.

We're not going to negotiate about the terms of terrorism. You don't negotiate about terrorism. It's is wrong to engage in terrorism, and there isn't anything to negotiate.

Dogsled-riding is a sport that is relaxing as well as fragrant.

I have a really shallow idea about what Australia is.

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.

Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.