As I've gotten older I've gotten more liberal and my father is increasingly conservative. It's so shocking to me because I always thought we had the same politics. The day I realized we voted for different presidents I practically fell out of my chair.

I kept a steel wall around my moral and sexual instincts - protecting them I thought from the threats of the real world. This gave me a tremendous advantage in politics if not in my soul. The true me my spiritual core slipped further and further from reach.

When I came into politics I always thought there was a possibility I would be killed.

Idealism is the despot of thought just as politics is the despot of will.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

I never thought of politics as a profession.

To those who have exhausted politics nothing remains but abstract thought.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent thoughtful schoolchildren.

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things and yet I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife who was very smart about poetry.

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old inwardly its poetry is much deeper.

I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life.

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

However I learned something. I thought that if the young person the student has poetry in him or her to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

I've always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought 'How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry '

A theology should be like poetry which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion but in fact what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper.

I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.