Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes.

I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.

I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.

Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of a flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower.

So I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.