Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry.

Man cannot produce a single work without the assistance of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thought.

Happiness, for you we walk on a knife edge. To the eyes you are a flickering light, to the feet, thin ice that cracks; and so may no one touch you who loves you.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

Against the dark background of this contemporary civilization of well-being, even the arts tend to mingle, to lose their identity.

In reality art is always for everyone and for no one.

There is also poetry written to be shouted in a square in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This occurs especially in countries where authoritarian regimes are in power.

Mass communication, radio, and especially television, have attempted, not without success, to annihilate every possibility of solitude and reflection.

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.

Evidently the arts, all the visual arts, are becoming more democratic in the worst sense of the word.

Today not even a universal fire could make the torrential poetic production of our time disappear. But it is exactly a question of production, that is, of hand-made products which are subject to the laws of taste and fashion.

Many of today's verses are prose and bad prose.

Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready.

I do not go in search of poetry. I wait for poetry to visit me.

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

It has often been observed that the repercussion of poetic language on prose language can be considered a decisive cut of a whip.

For my part, if I consider poetry as an object, I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music.

I have been judged to be a pessimist but what abyss of ignorance and low egoism is not hidden in one who thinks that Man is the god of himself and that his future can only be triumphant?

However, poetry does not live solely in books or in school anthologies.

I have always knocked at the door of that wonderful and terrible enigma which is life.

Art is the production of objects for consumption, to be used and discarded while waiting for a new world in which man will have succeeded in freeing himself of everything, even of his own consciousness.

But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I took advantage of this negative liberty.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

The poet does not know - often he will never know - whom he really writes for.

Strangely, Dante's Divine Comedy did not produce a prose of that creative height or it did so after centuries.

I am perhaps a late follower of Zoroaster and I believe that the foundation of life is built upon the struggle between the two opposing forces of Good and Evil.

There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

Sometimes I try to take a nap before shows. That clears my head.

Sometimes when you have a song, you listen to it and say, 'It's OK. It's music to drive to.' But then there are songs where you can actually hear it as a movie.

I'm a talker. I love a good debate.

To me, when I think of New Age, I think of crystals and rainbows and platitudes.

Politicians - in both political parties - spend too much money. And they forget to focus on what matters most: fixing the economic mess they created and putting people back to work.

I want to do movies, television and theater. Whatever comes along.

Australians are pretty blunt and we say things how they really are.

I'm a troglodyte. I think that's the word for it. Like an old school weird person who throws bricks at their computers.

Slavery was the betrayal of the American Promise at the moment that promise was made.

I'm a nomad.

I figured, 'If I ever get offered a chance to sign a deal, I'll only do it if I got to do it how I want.' So my contract is structured in such a way that I'm really protected.

I love Southern rock; it's because I grew up on it, and no matter where I am, I'll always be a Georgia girl.

Any politician that says no tax revenue or zero spending cuts does not deserve reelection. Our hole is so deep in this country with the debt and the debt service, the interest on that debt, before the big expenses come for Social Security and Medicare - for we baby boomers in a few years - that everything has to be on the table.

The liberals think government exists to fix what's wrong with America. They find fault with our Constitution, our economic model and our core values. We disagree with the premise of their argument. We believe there's nothing wrong with America that an extra dose of freedom won't cure.

I want to be a good actor more than anything - someone you can respect.

Attention is what creates value. Artworks are made as well by how people interact with them - and therefore by what quality of interaction they can inspire.

Each time I've gone to the studio, the songs have got better and I've got more confident.

Local economies are suffering as people spend more on fuel and less on consumer goods and travel.

I think, especially in our business we meet a lot of people, and sometimes you spend so much time being nice to strangers, and so, you know, keeping a clear head and just being nice to each other. And that's all the advice I can give.

Criticism is an indirect form of self boasting.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.