You know, all my songs are relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins.
Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism
I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.
It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.
Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.
Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag.
How I feel about myself is more important than how I look. Feeling confident, being comfortable in your skin - that's what really makes you beautiful.
There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel. It is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative.
Almost everything that's happened in my poetry is what you might call organic. I don't do much preconceiving. The only consistent plan I've ever had is to try to break my patterns, my habits, my kneejerk tendencies in writing. If I start to sound too much like the Ron Padgett that I've read before, I stop myself. I don't want to get locked perpetually in a mode or a level of diction or a stylistic vein - what is called a poetic voice.
There's a lot of things that there's misconceptions. Evidently it's a misconceptions that Americans believe that Muslims are terrorists.