No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. ↗
You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.' ↗
I've been writing on my own. It's like Roger Miller used to say, every now and then, like a dog having puppies, you have to crawl under the house and do it yourself. ↗
They used to say it was bad for Indians to drink, but it's bad for anybody. When they drink they lose their cool, a lot of us. Like when we played with Sonny Boy, I would never get paid, you know. He would drink up all the money. ↗
I heard stories from my mother's mother who was an American Indian. She was spiritual, although she did not go to church, but she had the hum. She used to tell me stories of the rivers. ↗
Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change. ↗
Because my parents, growing up, they worked hard. Everyone in my family woke up early in the morning. I used to see my mother and my father go off to work, and come back and, no matter what, they had time for the kids. ↗
