To know anything of a poet but his poetry is so far as the poetry is concerned to know something that may be entertaining even delightful but is certainly inessential.

That's a wonderful change that's taken place and so most poetry today is published if not directly by the person certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself working with his friends.

I love painting and music of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies but it's clear that in America poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass for new things to happen to us we want to hold on to certain moments we don't want our lives to end.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know.

Unfortunately poetry is not born in noise in crowds or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry on the other hand poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

Perhaps no person can be a poet or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that anymore - tracking words down to their roots.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war we have to attack that way of life.

Certainly protecting oppressed people stopping ethnic conflict and promoting responsible governance are worthy goals. But none is as important for American security and prosperity as keeping the peace in the Middle East Europe and East Asia.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is in being that completely.

Wars are of course as a rule to be avoided but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

Of one thing I am certain the body is not the measure of healing peace is the measure.

A man's country is not a certain area of land of mountains rivers and woods but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

I think you can judge from somebody's actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean there's a certain patience a certain discipline I think that religion helps you achieve.

The days of our lives for all of us are numbered. We know that. And yes there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human.

I think I'm going to have to live vicariously through my daughter's rebellion because I certainly never did go through adolescence.

A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.

When I get recognized for 'Twilight ' it's usually a teenage girl and they're usually really loud. So it certainly feels like I get recognized the most from that but it could just be because of the nature of how vocal those fans are.