Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

The future is always beginning now.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.

Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

It's very hard to write humor.

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.

It hardly seems worthwhile to point out the shortsightedness of those practitioners who would have us believe that the form of the poem is merely its shape.

There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.

From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.

I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

Each moment is a place you've never been.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.

For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better.

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.

We bear a heavy and therefore a great destiny.

To be a Jew is a destiny.

You can be great only if it is your destiny.

At times, we were forced to go through a history of dependence, unable to determine our own destiny. But today, we are at the threshold of a new turning point.

So that is how I ended up with those two titles, I like Accidentally on Purpose better - it is how we work in our trade - is it really an accident, or is there a thread of destiny in there? That was the intention, I am not sure I found out.

There is one type of ideal woman very seldom described in poetry - the old maid, the woman whom sorrow or misfortune prevents from fulfilling her natural destiny.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It's tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny.

So, if anatomy is destiny then testosterone is doom.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

One knows less about one's own destiny than about anything else on earth.

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.

I believe that the people, instead of pretty lies, should be told the truth, no matter how ugly it may be. What can we do, destiny hasn't been kind to us; but, with the help of God, we will prevail.

Destiny is something men select; women achieve it only by default or stupendous suffering.

God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so.

The SA is, and remains, Germany's destiny.

Your destiny is my destiny. Your happiness is my happiness.

I was interested in being in Fight Club, but I wanted Edward's part, but since they're not going to hand a girl those parts you have to manifest destiny and not complain, bitch or whine.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise.

We believe. We believe in our destiny as a nation. We believe we have been called to do good, to spread the blessings of liberty and encourage the sense of trust upon which free societies depend.