“Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.”

Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.

Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!

No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.

Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.

Here’s how I operate. When I see something I like, 20 years later, I ask her brother for her phone number. She don’t even see me coming.

And we have never observed modern finance-capitalist systems operating over a sustained period at this kind of credit-to-GDP leverage ratio.

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.

Expressions of the Holy Spirit’s power, evangelism to seekers, or Bible teaching, these so-called new movements still operate out of the fallacious assumption that the church belongs firmly in the town square, that is, at the heart of Western culture.

Many like me who operate in black America can only get our balanced story told nationally on BET talk shows.

We intend to conduct our business in a way that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of our customers, business partners, shareholders, and creditors, as well as the communities in which we operate and society at large.

It imposes rhythms, it orders, it operates, it does not abandon the earth where its destiny must be fulfilled and whose own destiny must be fulfilled by it. Its history will be that of men and not of idle gods.

I think having the opportunity to get inside the skin of people that operate outside the law and normal moral and ethical restraints, and then to go home afterwards leaving them on set, is pretty cathartic.