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We can make a little order where we are, and then the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect doesn't overwhelm us. We do it with colors, with a garden, with the furnishings of a room, or with sounds and words. We make a little form, and we gain composure.
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Bounds should be set To ingenuity for being so cruel In bringing change unheralded on the unready.
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Now no joy but lacks salt .That is not dashed with pain and weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.
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A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.
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Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.
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Sarcastic Science, she would like to know, In her complacent ministry of fear, How we propose to get away from here When she has made things so we have to go Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show Us how by rocket we may hope to steer To some star off there, say, a half light-year Through temperature of absolute zero? Why wait for Science to supply the how When any amateur can tell it now? The way to go away should be the same As fifty million years ago we came- If anyone remembers how that was I have a theory, but it hardly does.
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Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
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The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.
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Love has earth to which she clings....
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He burned his house down for the fire insurance and spent the proceeds on a telescope.
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How are we to write The Russian novel in America As long as life goes so unterribly?
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The only way around is through.
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Suddenly, quietly, you realize that - from this moment forth - you will no longer walk through this life alone. Like a new sun this awareness arises within you, freeing you from fear, opening your life. It is the beginning of love, and the end of all that came before.
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A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
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But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been - alone, As all must be, I said within my heart, Whether they work together or apart.
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No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.
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Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of 30.
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I never feel more at home than at a ballgame.
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Poets like Shakespeare know more about poetry than any $25 an hour man.
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I could give all to Time except--except What I myself have held.
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You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.
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He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors.
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If you don't know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.
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And one of the three great things in the world is gossip, you know. First there's religion; and then there's science; and there's-and then there's friendly gossip. Those are the three-the three great things.