In fact, lots of good poetry doesn't work , so I don't mind a bit of mystification or difficulty.

There is such a shelter in each other.

Cargo cults fascinate me partly because Christianity itself is in many ways a cargo cult.

I don't think there's any law where you have to read a poem and immediately understand it.

She was privileged enough to feel at home anywhere, and to equate squalor with authenticity.

Nabokov quote: "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

The reason that the book exists is because there was a gap in you. You wrote the book to fulfill that gap in some way.

A huge portion of Trump voters are incredibly pleased with how he's performing. They see what they want to see.

Writing a poem is a more personal experience, I think, than writing prose. And perhaps reading a poem is a more personal experience than reading prose, though that's harder to say.

That's what Samuel Johnson said: "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think particularly fine, strike it out."

When you're rereading or editing your book and you start to expect that this work is going to be reviewed, and you can sort of tell which line is going to show up in reviews.

I need you to be happy. I need one of us to be happy.

I hate reality but it's still the best place to get a good steak.

Reach for the stars, not your fears.

Some things you jes' know Doll, and that's one I'd bet the farm on.

If you are bitter, you are like a dry leaf that you can just squash, and you can get blown away by the wind. There is much more wisdom in forgiveness.

Fancy sleeping on air. I wonder if anyone's done it before. I don't suppose they have. Oh, bother—-Scrubb probably has!

Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it.

Poverty persuades a man to do and suffer everything that he may escape from it.

Children enjoy inflicting pain until unhappiness teaches them tenderness.

Work not of enthusiasm but of love, conscious of duty-which means self-denial.