You hear certain things negative things all the time that aren't true but you never hear about the positive.

Positive healthy loving relationships in your twenties... I don't know if anyone would disagree with it: I think they're the exception not the norm. People are either playing house really aggressively because they're scared of what an uncertain time it is or they're avoiding commitment altogether.

Well you know a lot of people look at the negative things the things that they did wrong and - which I do. But I like to stress on the things I did right because there are certain things that I like to look at from a positive standpoint that are just positive reinforcement.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches copies of copies until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity doubt uncertainty not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material but because that is the way we humans really are.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

You don't go after poetry you take what comes. Maybe the gods do it through me but I certainly do a hell of a lot of the work.

Well - I started writing - probably in the early 60s and by say '65-'66 I had read most of the poetry that had been published - certainly in the 20 years prior to that.

Well if this is poetry I'm certainly never going to write any myself.

In rap music even though the element of poetry is very strong so is the element of the drum the implication of the dance. Without the beat its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

To know anything of a poet but his poetry is so far as the poetry is concerned to know something that may be entertaining even delightful but is certainly inessential.

That's a wonderful change that's taken place and so most poetry today is published if not directly by the person certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself working with his friends.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies but it's clear that in America poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass for new things to happen to us we want to hold on to certain moments we don't want our lives to end.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know.

Unfortunately poetry is not born in noise in crowds or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry on the other hand poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

Perhaps no person can be a poet or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that anymore - tracking words down to their roots.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

Certainly protecting oppressed people stopping ethnic conflict and promoting responsible governance are worthy goals. But none is as important for American security and prosperity as keeping the peace in the Middle East Europe and East Asia.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is in being that completely.

Of one thing I am certain the body is not the measure of healing peace is the measure.