I have two daughters and I have done everything in my power to prevent them from assimilating even being aware of my idiocy about my weight.

Tonight we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

Here at this site Solyndra expects to make enough solar panels each year to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. And over the lifetime of this expanded facility that could be like replacing as many as eight coal-fired power plants.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be for the world an example of a genuinely free democratic just and humane society.

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

If it is an imperfect word no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

I don't like to boast but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

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.

Each word bears its weight so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

In their heyday the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode New Order or The Cure but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.

I kind of imagine myself at eighty a cat lady.

Now people all across America are starting to believe in America again. We are coming back back to the heights of greatness back to America's proud role as a temple of justice and a champion of peace.

Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides peace and prosperity for eight blessed years - and even a third term for his feckless vice president George H.W. Bush.

I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

The only thing of weight that can be said against modern honor is that it is directly opposite to religion. The one bids you bear injuries with patience the other tells you if you don't resent them you are not fit to live.

Anyhow a philosophical turn of thought now was not amiss else one's patience would have given out almost at the harbour entrance. The term of her probation was eight days.

Constant repetition of tongue-twisters was like lifting weights for me but patience and persistence have paid off.

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.