“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”

Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.

Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.

Traveler’s heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.

First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.

All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.

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.

Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count — / Festival of the Souls.

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.

Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.

The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.

At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.

The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Year by year, the monkey’s mask reveals the monkey.

I’m scared to death of being poor. It’s like a fat girl who loses 500 pounds but is always fat inside. I grew up poor and will always feel poor inside. It’s my pet paranoia.

When the storm settles and the sun clears the way, give yourself the chance to bloom again.

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

When I speak to kids I tell them, ‘Hey, you think your parents are a pain in the ass now, but they’re going to get smarter as you get older.’

Beauty now lies behind some of the deepest of scars where pain once called home.

The quality of place, the reaction to immediate contact with earth and growing things that have a fugal relationship with mountains and sky, is essential to the integrity of our existence on this planet.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it’s like to be stepped on, I know what it’s like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

Confidence? Are you kidding me? I mean, please. Look, some players grow up and play like that. I remember losing junior matches. Just being down 5-2 in the third, and they all just start slapping shots.