Would you phone the president of Ghana?
He paints a dolphin in the woods, a boar in the waves.
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity
Nothing's beautiful from every point of view.
A word once let out of the cage cannot be whistled back again.
It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar - that I call an achievement.
Never despair. [Nil desperandum. ]
There are big and little truths, but all belong to the same race.
Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it's much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they're attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself.
Patch grief with proverbs.
I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.