“I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more and more concentrated in you; everything else tastes like chaff in my mouth.”

That which is creative must create itself.

With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

I must choose between despair and Energy – I choose the latter.

Shed no tear – O, shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more – O, weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.

I have so much of you in my heart.

Failure is in a sense the highway to success, as each discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

There is an old saying “well begun is half done”-’tis a bad one. I would use instead-Not begun at all ’til half done.

What is more gentle than a wind is summer?

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it better not come at all.

The poetry of earth is never dead When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide I cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.

Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it.

My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?

Focus on your music and not technology.

Be driven, be focused, but enjoy every moment, because it only happens once.

You know what the problem that animal activists sometimes have? They only concentrate on the heartbreaking things to the point where the general public thinks, ‘Oh, here comes those animal folks again and I’m going to hear all the things I don’t want to hear.’

I’m not aiming for a knockout. I focus on doing my best. If the knockout comes, fine. If not, that’s okay.

In the ring I can tell right away what his style is and I can adapt to it. I’m adjusting to life as a politician. It’s different in training but I can stay focused on both.

I choose to focus on my work so that I can turn my dreams into reality.

But I have to add – and this answers your other question – this catholicity in time and in space is only meaningful for me if there is, at the same time, a concentration on the Gospel.