Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.
Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder.
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.
To be a good loser is to learn how to win.
I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.
All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.
I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.
In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.
When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.