There is so much going on all over the world that it's impossible for one person to keep up. And I can't.

Pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it's used for baby girls. It's a wonder the military hasn't got on to this.

Laughter may instruct but it may also conceal, defending the joker against anger and retaliation: a game is only a game.

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

Within one's own family money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything. There are all kinds of other things that we are not supposed to sell - political influence being one of them. We too rarely have public conversations about the common sense of money. We too rarely talk about the human cost of putting some of these economic measures into effect.

At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

The truth, it seems, is not just what you find when you open a door: it is itself a door, which the poet is always on the verge of going through.