I still read Donne, particularly his love poems.

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.

Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments ­ its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion.

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

To have faith in God, you must also have faith in His timing....

Your failures are not determined by how many times you fall down. Your failures are determined by how many times you stay down, so get up and continue to strive!

...it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.

You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.

Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.

A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.

How wrong are those simpletons, of whom the world is full, who look more at... color than at the figures which show spirit and movement.

I'm not trying to be a big shot or anything like that, but I get my drinks half price.

A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines