I was a pretty happy kid, I had to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems.

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.

No matter your circumstance, there is hope, strength, and courage to be found.

Do not imagine that the good you intend will balance the evil you perform

I am a very public person. I have nothing to hide.

I'm convinced that there is nothing that can happen to me in this life that is not precisely designed by a sovereign Lord to give me the opportunity to learn to know Him.

Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.

Let's go back, back to the Beginning.

The hell what you USED to do! It's what you're doing NOW and what you're GOING to do.

Fast growth in a start-up is a sign that customers like what you're doing.

My dad is a retired Shakespeare professor, my mother a retired classicist. Suffice to say I grew up in a house full of books, where reading was encouraged if not required.

I was in the first submarine. Instead of a periscope, they had a kaleidoscope. "We're surrounded."