“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

“There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. ”

“History says, Don't hope/On this side of the grave/But then, once in a lifetime/The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up/And hope and history rhyme./So hope for a great sea change/On the far side of revenge/Believe in miracles....”

“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.”

“We want what the woman wanted in the prison queue in Leningrad, standing there with cold and whispering for fear, enduring the terror of Stalin's regime and asking the poet Anna Akhmatova if she could describe it all, if her art was equal to it.”

“Behaviour that's admiredis the path to power among people everywhere.”

“Sink every impulse like a bolt. Secure The bastion of sensation. Do not waver Into language. Do not waver in it.”