The lesson of the last year is this: foreign policy can't be managed through the politics of personality and our President would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy made once he was in office - that all of the world's problems aren't his predecessor's fault.

What drew me to politics in the first place was the fact that I wanted to have a place to take a stand and use my voice to express what I believed in. But I've no longer got any political aspirations. I feel that as a politician fifty per cent of people would hate you before you even left the house.

It would be great if politics were fact-based but it is not and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution not the country.

When I first started working in politics as a junior aide on Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign it never occurred to me that I would one day work in the White House. There were plenty of women among the volunteers who stuffed envelopes and walked precincts. But there were fewer and fewer on each successive level of influence and access.

I detest politics to be honest with you. It's a cesspool. And I don't think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don't believe in political correctness and I certainly don't believe in dishonesty.

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?

The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.

The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously.

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.

Confronted with the choice the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats we will stop telling the truth about them.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.

In rap music even though the element of poetry is very strong so is the element of the drum the implication of the dance. Without the beat its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.

I'm hopefully touring with Colin Baker next year in Perfect Strangers. I have performed with Sylvia Simms in poetry and music evenings. I would love to do those for the rest of my career - they are so fun and witty.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

Besides the actual reading in class of many poems I would suggest you do two things: first while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife who was very smart about poetry.

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life.

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could but it takes devotion and talent.