We could easily have evolved eyelids thick enough to keep out the light, but we still need to see the shadows fall across them. We're not yet safe.

We turn from the light to see.

Inconveniently, books are all the pages in them, not just the ones you choose to read.

Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage

The poem, in a sense, is no more or less than a little machine for remembering itself ... Poetry is therefore primarily a commemorative act.

Mediocre art is far worse than bad art. Bad art does not waste our time.

There's no fury more righteous than that of a sinner accused of the wrong sin.

After a long period of reflection, he decided that he was in fact right yet again.

Anything that elicits an immediate nod of recognition has only reconfirmed a prejudice.

Positive questions bring out the best in people, inspire positive action, and create possibilities for positive futures.

I really pay attention to the bass in the music I listen to, and that's what I tend to write toward.

The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.

Don't hate the player, Todd, hate the game.

Baseball is more like a novel than a war. It is like an ongoing, hundred-year work of art, peopled with thousands of characters, full of improbable events, anecdotes, folklore and numbers.

She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel.

Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying.

If men must beg to live, May the Creator also go wandering and perish.

I have always considered myself, when I learned what the word meant, I've always considered myself a Pagan.

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.