Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.

Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation.

For dear me, why abandon a belief Merely because it ceases to be true

Suddenly, quietly, you realize that - from this moment forth - you will no longer walk through this life alone. Like a new sun this awareness arises within you, freeing you from fear, opening your life. It is the beginning of love, and the end of all that came before.

At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone, to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions; to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to his side of the standing argument.

Humour is the most engaging cowardice. With it myself I have been able to hold some of my enemy in play far out of gunshot.