The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

I'd never really been content with just churning out these slim volumes every three or four years. I've always tried to think of poetry as an active ingredient in the language rather than just something that appears between the covers of thin books.

I've got a book of poetry by the bed one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

We recognise in the finished art which is the result of these conditions the best words in the best order - poetry and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles theses and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction but often it's really just about the money the perceived prestige.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

You know in my music career there was a moment where the irony was just so heavy. There were people in my audience that were the reason I developed neuroses. These people that tortured my life were using my art my poetry as fuel for them to torture other people.

When you're going through something whether it's a wonderful thing like having a child or a sad thing like losing somebody you often feel like 'Oh my God I'm so overwhelmed I'm dealing with this huge thing on my own.' In fact poetry's a nice reminder that no everybody goes through it. These are universal experiences.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But of course only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

In their heyday the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode New Order or The Cure but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.

It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert gentle and discriminating friends who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things to me are expressions of love.

We are a Nation of peace and compassion yet these people have and will devote every fiber of their beings to the destruction of Americans and our Country.

I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries but they do not produce peace and when war comes as it inevitably does under such conditions these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict.

These measures may not constitute an absolute guarantee of peace but in my opinion they constitute the greatest preventive measures ever adopted by nations.

The United Nations remains our most important global actor. These days we are continuously reminded of the enormous responsibility of the Security Council to uphold international peace and stability.

We belong to the camp of peace. We believe in peace. We believe that our one God wishes us to live in peace and wishes peace upon us for these are His teachings to all the followers of the three great monotheistic religions the Children of Abraham.

I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States.

Each one of these treaties is a step for the maintenance of peace an additional guarantee against war. It is through such machinery that the disputes between nations will be settled and war prevented.

God willing we shall come to a stage where the world looks at the Palestinian question and Palestinian rights on Palestinian national soil as well as the questions of the occupied Syrian and Lebanese territories. These are the bases on which peace will be built.

Not just Christians and Jews but also Muslims Buddhists Hindus and the followers of many other religions believe in values like peace respect tolerance and dignity. These are values that bring people together and enable us to build responsible and solid communities.

To plunder to slaughter to steal these things they misname empire and where they make a wilderness they call it peace.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.