“You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.”

Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are.

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.

A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell of rotting apples, And grow a fair amount of nettles.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers. You can kill one, but another is born. The words are written down, the deed, the date.

I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.

Two attributes of a poet, avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.

I am not my own friend.Time cuts me in two.

Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends.

I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished No more durable than old customs, family rituals, Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.

It is impossible to communicate to people who have not experienced it the undefinable menace of total rationalism.

A weak human mercy walks in the corridors of hospitals and is like a half-thawed winter.

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth.

With the ambitious, the failure of one expedient is the suggestion of another; but with the irresolute, defeat usually occasions abandonment of purpose.

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

Failure is the inspiration of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.

I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.

MY REGRETS ARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE I COULDN’T SAVE—Marines, soldiers, my buddies. I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.

It’s scary to imagine yourself failing. But I do know that in Bollywood, every Friday changes your destiny, and unfortunately, every Friday also changes the way people look at you.

People who blame others for their failures never overcome them. They simply move from problem to problem. To reach your potential, you must continually improve yourself, and you can’t do that if you don’t take responsibility for your actions and learn from your mistakes.