“The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.”

We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.

I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

Be young forever, seasons of the earth.

Language is the only homeland.

Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?

All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence.

For a country without a past is nothing, a word That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning, A perishable wall destroyed by flame, An echo of animal emotions.

The revolt against one’s environment is usually ‘shame’ of one’s environment.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

I liked beaches, swimming pools, and clinics for there they were the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I pitied them and myself, but this will not protect me. The word and the thought are over.

I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace.

You who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!

Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.

I am composed of contradictions, which is why poetry is a better form for me than philosophy.

History is the record of human progress, a record of the struggle of the advancement of the human mind, of the human spirit, towards some known or unknown objective.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.

First black president ever, and to be living while it happened – that’s a good part of history. That’s probably the biggest person I admire right now.

Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.

You don’t change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

But as for the future, I foresee a world which is more creative, more open, more loving, more ecologically friendly, more honest about its history and progress, and I think a lot of those contributions will be made by young people.

History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view. Or, at any rate, the victors’ version is given prominence and holds the field.

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.