Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

Easy writing makes hard reading.

Jesus didn't say that if you wanted to follow Him you could do it in a lukewarm manner. He said, 'Take up your cross and follow Me.'

No insignificant person was ever born.

It is a grave matter to enter a war, without adequate military preparation; it may prove fatal to come into peace, without moral and religious preparation.

When the family dies, the nation follows.

New ideas seem like frightening ghosts to people at the beginning; they run away from them for a long time, but they get tired of it in the end!

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space.

It doesn’t matter,” said Adrian, smiling. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Some things are worth the trouble.

Hurry up, please, its time.