Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.

What if angry vectors veer Round your sleeping head, and form. There's never need to fear Violence of the poor world's abstract storm.

When you get born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a ham trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can't get it all back but they will get as big a chunk out of you as they can.

Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.

To be an American is not...a matter of blood; it is a matter of an idea--and history is the image of that idea.

I reckon I am a smart aleck, but it is just a way to pass the time.