“… a nation without humor is not only sad but dangerous.”

What I would like you always to do is what I try humbly to do myself, that is, never to say or to do anything which would wound the feelings or the self-respect of any human being

And to give special consideration to all who are in any way repressed

[On art:] I believe that it not only enriches the spiritual life, but that it makes one more sane and sympathetic, more observant and understanding, regardless of whatever age it springs from, whatever subjects it represents.

Delay always breeds danger.

Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

Science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent ‘carbon summer’.

Just in case you get pneumonia or die. The dangerous bits are always the last days of shooting.

Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.

When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

In America, I don’t know how much longer the environment is going to exist. I sort of strongly believe that we’re in danger.

I think it’s really important to have a life and have interests outside of this [movie] business, and not rely on this business to validate you as a human being. If you do that, you’re really in a dangerous spot.