A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.

It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.

A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.

My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?

The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.

And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"-- and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: "Maybe I'm a king.