Whether we stay or whether we go - to be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.

It's my contention that there is no sincere path a human being can take without breaking his or her heart...so it can be a lovely, merciful thing to think, 'Actually, there is no path I can take without having my heart broken, so why not get on with it and stop wanting these extra-special circumstances which stop me from doing something courageous?'

See, even if you're stuck in life, if you can describe just exactly the way you're stuck, then you will immediately recognise that you can't go on that way anymore. So, just saying precisely, writing precisely how you're stuck, or how you're alienated, opens up a door of freedom for you.

I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.

It is the province of poetry to be more realistic and present than the artificial narratives of an outer discourse, and not afraid of the truthful difficulty of the average human life.

We sabotage our creative possibilities because the world revealed by our imagination may not fit well with the life we have taken so much trouble to construct over the years. Faced with the pain of that distance, the distance between desire and reality, we turn just for a moment and quickly busy ourselves.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.