“When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.”

Learning To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships all over the seas.

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.

You hurt and I bleed. What a curse to feel so deeply.

The curse turned to grace when the hurt turned to faith.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

That is the curse of immortality: to watch the world change, to see everything you know wither.

Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.

Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.

The pain that you hold is yours. This pain is not your curse; this pain is your privilege.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.