“Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs, – To the silent wilderness, Where the soul need not repress Its music.”

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindu, his best friends hear no more of him.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty.

Are we not formed, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar?

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.

Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.

I love tranquil solitude.

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.

Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these All things are subject but eternal love.

I wish no living thing to suffer pain.

I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won.

There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.

Eventually there are going to be cities in space.

I loathe crowds. I especially dont like cities.

Cities all over the world are getting bigger as more and more people move from rural to urban sites, but that has created enormous problems with respect to environmental pollution and the general quality of life.

A natural disaster in one American city is a natural disaster in every American city, including Fresno and, for that matter, every city and small town in the San Joaquin Valley.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.

You don’t need a city charter to know that education is the foundation of any community.

If youre a singer, you do concerts, and you get that interaction with fans and see what cities in what part of the world come out to see you.

I played with Joey Mullen back in Salt Lake City before he got called up to St. Louis. He was the first player ever to score 20 goals in the American League and 20 in the NHL. I’ve kept in contact with him and he’s a great guy.