Life without enquiry is not worth living.
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
Whether you want it or not, your genes have a political past, your skin a political tone. your eyes a political color. . . . you walk with political steps on political ground.
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know. '
I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
People readily believe what they want to believe.
My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater.
No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.
The glory of medicine is that it is constantly moving forward, that there is always more to learn. The ills of today do not cloud the horizon of tomorrow, but act as a spur to greater effort.