Maybe the culture is [particularly] shabby now. Maybe it's because I'm over sixty, that I can feel that about everything.

There's always a nice tune [on radio] - helps you get the dishes done . I like to get the news from time to time - not too often. I don't feel deprived.

My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico Garcia Lorca.

My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terrors for one who remembers the name.

My friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ache in places I used to play. And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on. I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep confession.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes one kind.