I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like soldiers – they just fade away.

If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.

Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.

Anyone who saw Nagasaki would suddenly realize that they'd been kept in the dark by the United States government as to what atomic bombs can do.

Our government is a bird with two right wings... They're devoted to the perpetuation & spread of corporate capitalism.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder

I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in a new rebirth of wonder.

We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.

Poetry must be capable of answering the challenge of apocalytpic times, even if this means sounding apocaltypic.

We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.

You can't get around pain and opposition, but you can try to be joyful in the trial, and thank yourself for the trial, and thank God for the strength to get through it.

But the issue of sexual harassment is not the end of it. There are other issues - political issues, gender issues - that people need to be educated about.

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed.

No it is not easy to write. It is as hard as breaking rocks. Sparks and splinters fly like shattered steel.

Everyone gets lucky once in a while, but no one is consistently lucky.

On my tombstone just write, 'The sorest loser that ever lived.'

If you aren't having no fun, die, because you're running a worthless program, far as I'm concerned.

Meetings don't have to be endless to be eternal.

Well, I have an idea, usually a visual image of some sort. A setting. A particular, I don't know, urban scene, a particular time of day. Something that grips my imagination for some reason.

For me, staying in place might mean staying with my own thoughts, even if the body keeps traveling. I might be experiencing new things, but I'm also here, with myself.