“The entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.”

I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment-but which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one.

You have to be sensitive but honest. You have to be a gentleman and do it in person. You have to look her in the eyes.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine.

A Christian will say… “I believe God created me in one day” Yeah, looks liked He rushed it.

But people that are worried about unborn babies are the same ones that vote against kindergarten programs in Indiana or school lunch funds out of the federal government.

I hope the poem, as it goes on, gets more complicated, a little more demanding, a little more ambiguous or speculative, so that we’re drifting away from the casual beginning of the poem into something a little more serious.

But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.

I’m very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem. And that the ending of the line is a way of turning the reader’s attention back into the interior of the poem.

Beauty is the result of realizing what is special about you and not focusing on the things you don’t like.

One of these days I’m-a make me a book out of you.

…pleasure, of course, is a slippery word…. Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the pleasure’s source.

You describe your life in negative terms you will find that this will reinforce your mind’s negative emotions and make you unhappy and even more susceptible to feeling unhappy in the future.

Urges … every man has urges. But the true measure of man is to admit them, to learn to control them. The Shield used to refer to themselves as the most dominant force in our universe. But that ain’t the way I remember it.

Until recently, I thought ‘occasional poetry’ meant that you wrote only occasionally.

I was influenced by the Beats because I actually just began to commit adolescence around 1955, when “Howl” and Rebel Without a Cause and a lot of other new things were popping up.

But some nights, I must tell you, I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep. I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness. I sing a love song as well as I can, lost for a while in the home of the rain.

I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.

I decided I got to say whether I was Christian or not, and so I’ve relaxed enormously since then. I’m the one who gets to say that, and not someone else.

I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.

Since each religion claims that it is the only true one and that the others are invalid’, the king explained, ‘I have decided to hedge my bets’.

I Became a free woman when I decided to stop dreaming, freedom that is waiting for nothing .. and anticipation is a state of slavery

It won’t be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.

If, as we decided in Munich, there will be a cessation of hostilities and humanitarian assistance can flow into Syria – then this will open the door for the beginning of the political transition process.

And I decided that I would best serve as a producer as opposed to a studio executive.