There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.

My father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother.

If you could drink dreams like the Irish streams Then the world would be high as the mountain of morn In the Pool they told us the story How the English divided the land.

And, because my role in society - or any artist or poet's role - is to try to express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel, not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. And it's like that's the job of the artist in society, not to...they're not some alienated being living on the outskirts of town. It's fine to live on the outskirts of town, but artists must reflect what we all are. … If that's taken it too much on meself, I feel that artists are that - they're reflections of society... Mirrors.

I used to hide my real emotions in gobbledegook, like in In His Own Write. When I wrote teenage poems, I wrote in gobbledegook because I was always hiding my real emotions from Mimi.

Without Jimmy Dean, the Beatles never would have existed.

I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am doing now.