And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release — out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?

There have been as many varieties of socialists as there are wild birds that fly in the woods and sometimes go up and on through the clouds.

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damned hard.

People lie because they don't remember clear what they saw. People lie because they can't help making a story better than it was the way it happened.

Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.

Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.