“In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.”

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire

September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror’s sting, rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles’ wings.–from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001

A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.

Made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.

Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

Now come the whispers bearing bouquets of moonbeams and sunlight tremblings.

Than they are to hearing anything about acts of love or grace.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

When the will to learn from the ordinary is present, a seeker may indeed gain entrance into levels of awareness that are extraordinary.

I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth.

The uses to which it may be applied are limited only by an individual’s imagination.

As a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.

Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.

I thought [when I was 16] my days were just going to be spent hanging out on a beach and my girlfriend was going to be Miss Teen USA and my best friend will be a dolphin.

Once I came to acting, it was almost a thing where there weren’t enough hours in the day to work on stuff because I was so passionate about it.

You always take a little bit back with you at the end of the day. I always put a little bit of myself into the characters, too.

You don’t know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I’m more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.

When you were a kid, a day was a long time and a year was a long time

The challenge to be the best is what drives me and to just improve my body every day.