The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children.

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

Whenever I’m confused about something, I ask God to reveal the answers to my questions, and he does.

Being brought up very religious, I have a fear of people that look to idol gods.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule the world.

I know I got angels watchin me from the other side.

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans – an avian flu pandemic.

God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

‚O sleep, O gentle sleep,‘ I thought gratefully, ‚Nature’s soft nurse!‘

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith.

The main problem with writing in verse is, if your fourth line doesn’t come out right, you’ve got to throw four lines away and figure out a whole new way to attack the problem. So the mortality rate is terrific.

A saint serves others, knowing that the more one serves, the greater the opportunity for the Spirit to sanctify and purify.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Worshipping the Lord means giving Him the place that he must have; worshipping the Lord means stating, believing – not only by our words – that He alone truly guides our lives; worshipping the Lord means that we are convinced before Him that He is the only God, the God of our lives, the God of our history.

The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.

God’s Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that.

I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, ‚I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior’s power to bless others.‘

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Man is by nature a political animal.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

I gave in, and admitted that God was God.

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.

Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

Death surrenders us totally to God: it makes us enter into him; we must, in return, surrender ourselves to death with absolute love and self-abandonment since, when death comes, all we can do is to surrender ourselves completely to the domination and guidance of God.

I’m actually an evangelical atheist, but there is something I recognise about religion: that it gives people a chance to surrender.

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.

Why should poetry have to make sense?

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

Certain though I am – and ever more certain – that I must press on in life as though Christ awaited me at the term of the universe, at the same time I feel no special assurance of the existence of Christ. Believing is not seeing. As much as anyone, I imagine, I walk in the shadows of faith.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world… to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.