I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.

People say I look so happy – and I say, ‚That’s the Botox.‘

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

But time has set its maggot on their track.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

A woman of the world is anxious to exhibit her form and shape, whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping. Even when represented as a picture, she desires to captivate with the charms of her beauty and, thus, to rob men of their steadfast heart.

Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

To create something you must be something.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

Classical – perhaps I should say ‚orchestral‘ – music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It’s all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities.

I don’t like perfumes that are too strong or sweet. I like a fragrance that is earthy and sensual and can be worn at any time.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

I very rarely watch my own fashion shows, but the makeup for my Fall 2011 show was just brilliant.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.

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.

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.

The waving of a pine tree on the top of a mountain – a magic wand in Nature’s hand – every devout mountaineer knows its power; but the marvelous beauty value of what the Scotch call a breckan in a still dell, what poet has sung this?

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

Language is the dress of thought.