1. “A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.”
2. ”And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release - out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?”
3. ”A woman is like a tea bag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.”
4. ”COVER me over In dusk and dust and dreams.
Cover me over And leave me alone.
Cover me over, You tireless, great.
Hear me and cover me, Bringers of dusk and dust and dreams.”
5. "History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it."
6. “I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.”
7. “I TOO have a garret of old playthings. I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs. I have a wagon and the wheels gone upstairs. I have guns and a drum, a jumping-jack and a magic lantern. And dust is on them and I never look at them upstairs. I too have a garret of old playthings.”
8. ”I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.”
9. “I will read ashes for you, if you ask me. / I will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes / And out of the red and black tongues and stripes, / I will tell how fire comes / And how fire runs far as the sea.”
10. “Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.”
11. “Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder.”
12. “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
13. "Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child."
14. “Our lives are like a candle in the wind.”
15. "Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."
16. “Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.”
17. ”Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
18. “Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.”
19. "Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
20. “Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.”
21. “The drum in a dream pounds loud to the dreamer.”
22. ”The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.”
23. “There are people who want to be everywhere at once, and they get nowhere.”
24. "The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am."
25. “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”
