Part of what the imagination does later in life is it's linking you not just to who you are now but to all the people you've been.

And I said to myself, here's the problem with the world: The Italians are too Italian, and nobody else is Italian enough.

Like a page dipped in ink, your cuff's in my coffee. / You have something to tell with unbuttoned sleeves.

As poets, we're writing into the void, and we're not writing to be bestsellers. Whatever individual responses we get, whether at a reading, by a conversation or a letter, mean the world.

Money is that dear thing which, if you're not careful, you can squander your whole life thinking of.

Your self-reliance, self-appraisal and self- perception depends on how successful you are at knowing who God has created you to become

[T]his is an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life.

My father was an Episcopalian minister, and I've always been comforted by the power of prayer.

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.

This is like being in the super bowl. It's first down, you're on the one yard line, You either make a touchdown or you're hosed.

It is not about reading the Word. It is about obeying the Word.

Actions are divided as regards their object into four classes; they are either purposeless , unimportant , or vain , or good .

There's a lot of thievery involved in writing. You're breaking into other people's spaces and other people's stories.

And Michael Schumacher is 37 seconds ahead, so he can refuel the car, change all four wheels, take off his helmet, have a smoke and a cup of tea, and rejoin in first.

Starbucks has kept me in the ministry.