As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work I'll leave that for others to decide.

You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions they pass no criticisms.

Egypt has been a partner of the United States over the last 30 years has been instrumental in keeping the peace in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel which is a critical accomplishment that has meant so much to so many people.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

In every society in human history including the United States those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism and find criticism subversive.

There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical questioning and often angry patriotism.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?