I think Gadhafi is on the mark. And up until this point in time I think they truly want to turn this around and become a positive player with the West after years and years of terrorism and stagnation.

If you look just at the decades after 1934 you know it's hard to point to really inspired and positive support from outside of Haiti to Haiti and much easier to point to either small-minded or downright mean-spirited policies.

People meet in bars after work all over the world and talk about the great problems of life and death and the world and politics and they don't take themselves seriously. They can do nothing else except chat about these things in bars after work.

I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine you know just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!

When times are tough constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world cooperation works better. After all nobody's right all the time and a broken clock is right twice a day.

The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out do not vote or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow next week next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

After much prayerful consideration I feel that I must say I have climbed my last political mountain.

And after I make a lot of money I'll be able to afford running for office.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

I didn't want to deal in poetry. I got rid of that after a few months.

You don't go after poetry you take what comes. Maybe the gods do it through me but I certainly do a hell of a lot of the work.

Literature is a state of culture poetry is a state of grace before and after culture.

The end of poetry is not to create a physical condition which shall give pleasure to the mind... The end of poetry is not an after-effect not a pleasurable memory of itself but an immediate constant and even unpleasant insistence upon itself.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and yes read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

In the language of poetry where every word is weighed nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all not a single existence not anyone's existence in this world.

The library was open for one hour after school let out. I hid there looking at art books and reading poetry.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion but in fact what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban night is like the night there... Squares after squares of flame set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry for we have pulled down the stars to our will.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

One will never again look at a birch tree after the Robert Frost poem in exactly the same way.

To me a cat is an easy pet they don't need any spoiling or looking after.