It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.

Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!

All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'.

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good one—and the same goes for paintings.

What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.

I am overcome by my own amazing sloth...Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don't do it at all?

Sometimes it seemsas though only intelligent people are stupid enough to fall in love & only stupid people are intelligent enough to let themselves be loved.

All the untidyactivity continues, awful but cheerful.

Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.

Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?

Most times, my mind is just an ongoing, present-tense, first-person monologue. It's like I'm writing a novel, constantly, but only in my brain.

Only undertake what you can do in an excellent fashion. There are no prizes for average performance.

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

Illness sets the stage for the opening of our hearts.

Fate, I think, is a thief.

Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.

I don't think I'd live in London unless you paid me. Nine figures would be nice.

I am not your dog, but if every time you saw me, you gave me a backrub, I would run to greet you, too.

I don't want to go shoving what I believe down anyone's throat. Whatever I believe about Jesus is a personal thing, but it doesn't exclude all the others.

We put forth a very strong number. It's always hard to know, it's impossible to know what numbers are out there.