It would be nice if all the Republicans could put poetry in a little box and put the box under the bed and sit on it, but they can't.

The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something done about it.

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

Nothing will change until we demolish the "we-they" mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.

I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center.

Of course, there are some people who behave rudely. Allen Ginsberg used to like to get up in public and take his clothes off. I don't do that, but I liked Allen Ginsberg. He was a nice guy.

I think a lot of American poets are swimming-pool Soviets. A lot of them have taken the comfortable, self-protective route too often. I know that I certainly have. That's easy to do.

George W. Bush is using language that's a mirror image of the language of Osama bin Laden when he says, "We have God on our side. This is the struggle of good against evil."

I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me.

Sometimes people come up and they get infatuated with some little brief imagistic poem or something, and they say, "Oh, I really like your Zen poems." And I say, "Which ones are not Zen poems?"

Each of us as poets, as decent suffering human beings, has to find a way to run our lives that is compassionate toward one another and toward our environment.

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.

There is no complete theory of anything.

Live your days on the positive side of life, in tune with your most treasured values. And in each moment you'll have much to live for.

When you think about justifiable anger in one's personal life, we look at those scenarios in everyday life and through our story with a superhero, we heighten them.

As the child outlives the father,so must the character bury the author.

Fear and impatience demagnetize. Poise magnetizes.

Parents often brag about the amount of money spent per child, but I think, perhaps ironically, those great monies that are spent - I call it putting a band-aid on a hemorrhage.

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

We don't have a lot of class-conscious filmmaking.

Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.