I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

However I must say that I am very happy to see that we have such a positive result for our first referendum in our history and that gives me more confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used that's great.

When people ask me about my story I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments the big landmark checkpoints.

I was totally absorbed in the real world the politics the history the news and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel it was in fits and starts.

Rush Limbaugh we expect nonsense from him. But the Vatican that's another story. When the Vatican is so threatened that it launches attacks on nuns well you know what they say in politics a hit dog hollers.

But poetry is a way of language it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats almost 100 years old now and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.