“The historic transition from Novice to Proficient to Adept was said to be accomplished virtually overnight by the progression from marijuana to peyote to lysergic acid. Instant mysticism had arrived. Before the court of law, hippies demanded freedom for LSD the way early Christians demanded freedom for the Eucharist.”

“A poem is contained movement. ”

“Few things contain and impact the immediacy of cultural impress so evocatively as books, and not only through their ideas. A book is an artifact, and every age establishes upon the basic functional structure its own particular stamp.”

“Art is not the handmaid of politics. It is its own remedy! And its healing is sacral.”

“Poetry, like sanctity, is the orchestration of multiple attributes into vast, compelling wholes.”

“One of the deepest needs of the human soul is for centeredness . . . which confers meaning on the shapelessness of temporal existence.”

“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear -- and doubt.”