I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.