The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?

I hope that what you take away from my album is not just the music – which I did want to be fun, and I did want it to be about individuality, but please also take away from it that there’s no dream that’s too big.

You have to dream before your dreams can come true.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

Everyone calls me Bruno; they don’t ever call me Peter – that was just my government name.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

I write some country music. There’s a song called ‚I Hope You Dance.‘ Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.

I’m not interested in people positioning me next to other artists.

There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

I write music every day.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.