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.
Carl Sandburg
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.
Nothing happens unless first we dream.
A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.
Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.
To be a good loser is to learn how to win.
Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future.
There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.
Love your neighbor as yourself; but don't take down the fence.
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.
In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.
Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder.
To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky - or the answer is wrong and you have to start over and try again and see how it comes out this time.
Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.
Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.
A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.
Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.
A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.
Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.
One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.
I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.
I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.
Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.
I stayed away from mathematics not so much because I knew it would be hard work as because of the amount of time I knew it would take, hours spent in a field where I was not a natural.
Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life.
I took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.
You remember some bedrooms you have slept in. There are bedrooms you like to remember and others you would like to forget.
We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.
The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
Calling it off comes easy enough if you haven't told the girl you are smitten with her.
Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.
All politicians should have 3 hats - one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of if elected.
I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.
