There was earth inside them, and they dug.

Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

A nothing we were, are, shall remain, flowering: the nothing--, the no one's rose.

Reality is not simply there, it does not simply exist: it must be sought out and won.

Poetry is a sort of homecoming.

The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it. Does this very fact not place the poem already here, at its inception, in the encounter, in the mystery of encounter?

Don't sign your name between worlds, surmount the manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain, learn to live.

There's nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.

We are told that when Hölderlin went 'mad,' he constantly repeated, 'Nothing is happening to me, nothing is happening to me.'

German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.

Believe in yourself and the beauty of your dreams.

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

Do not be bitter over the past. Believe in a brighter future.

Embrace the sacredness of existence.

But I'm insane. You're crazy. Maybe that's why, We can just make crazy together.

I'd always been treated like an object, not like a human.

I remember when I was in college, people told me I couldn't play in the NBA. There's always somebody saying you can't do it, and those people have to be ignored.

Nothing is so fragile as thought in its infancy; an interruption breaks it: nothing is so powerful, even to overturning empires, when it reaches its maturity.

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

Feare may force a man to cast beyond the moone.