She has something to say about what life is like-which is all we ask of poetry.

Every poet knows the pun is Pierian, that it springs from the same soil as the Muse?a matching and shifting of vowels and consonants, an adroit assonance sometimes derided as jackassonance.

Life, alas, is very drear. Up with the glass! Down with the beer!

God, though this life is but a wraith, Although we know not what we use, Although we grope with little faith, Give me the heart to fight and lose.

Friendship is like love at its best; not blind but sympathetically all-seeing; a support which does not wait for understanding; an act of faith which does not need, but always has, reason.

Write out of love, write out of instinct, write out of reason. But always for money.

Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable in terms of the unforgettable.

Nothing but blackness above And nothing that moves but the cars... God, if you wish for our love, Fling us a handful of stars!

Come, drink the mystic wine of Night, Brimming with silence and the stars; While earth, bathed in this holy light, Is seen without its scars.

Laughter shall drown the raucous shout; And, though these shelt'ring walls are thin, May they be strong to keep hate out And hold love in.

Why has our poetry eschewed The rapture and response of food? What hymns are sung, what praises said For home-made miracles of bread?

An actor cannot and must not become more important than the story.

If I don't get off the mat I'll lose the fight.

Saw a wedding in the church. It was strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.

Channel your energy. Focus.

I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

Necessity, the mother of invention.

I think the local food movement has been taken to idiotic extremes. And so I wrote about that and people got pissed.

I dream of a world liberated of all diseases. Ignorance also upsets me a lot. How can one calmly look at the pictures from Rwanda and not instantly want to take action and try to ease the suffering?

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him.