A poet is a professional maker of verbal objects.
Keep skid chains on your tongue. Say less than you think. Cultivate a pleasant voice. How you say it is often more important than what you say.
If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things that are missing. If you don't have love in your life, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.
If you have a good name, if you are right more often than you are wrong, if your children respect you, if your grandchildren are glad to see you, if your friends can count on you and you can count on them in time of trouble, if you can face your God and say "I have done my best," then you are a success.
People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.
Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead; that is where your future lies. Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them. People who care about each other enjoy doing things for one another. There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, What happened?
Know when to tune out, if you listen to too much advice you may wind up making other peoples mistakes.
The amount of horror one used to hear about in one village could be quite extreme. But one might not have heard about all the other villages' horrors at the same time.
If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes.
Financial sense is knowing that certain men will promise to do certain things, and fail.
The writer's role is to menace the public's conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time.