I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't they want that positive uptempo thing.

Compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof it is temporary expedient often wise in party politics almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money pay for food and put bread on the table.

But I don't think that poetry is a good to use a contemporary word venue for current events.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

It is not to be disguised that a war has broken out between the North and the South. - Political and commercial men are industriously striving to restore peace: but the peace which they would effect is superficial false and temporary.

Only to the extent that men desire peace and brotherhood can the world be made better. No peace even though temporarily obtained will be permanent whether to individuals or nations unless it is built upon the solid foundation of eternal principles.

I'd love to do a modern-day musical that's full of original music. To get your contemporaries to sing and dance without looking foolish and for it to be transformational and magical and all those things a musical is supposed to be.

I guess maybe I try to make movies that are closer to real life than are many Hollywood movies. But I still try to stay within a commercial narrative a contemporary American vernacular.