Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.

Reading poetry is like undressing before a bath. You don't undress out of fear that your clothes will become wet. You undress because you want the water to touch you. You want to completely immerse yourself in the feeling of the water and to emerge anew.

I write because the security of your love allows me to develop my craft without concerning myself with trivialities — as if your love could be any more complete. But I write, in the first place,because of you, my muse. I write for your green eyes to glance at my humble words and for the pleasure of hearing you utter them.

Every book has to wait for the right time to be read and understood.

We are all born as storytellers. Our inner voice tells the first story we ever hear.

It is a dangerous thing to substitute reading or writing for living. Live first, then write.

Because at nightwhen others are sleeping, I drown myself in poetry.

It’s so easy to lose faith and become lost in all of the politics of the world. That’s why we need the arts. To sublimate our frustration and anger into something beautiful. Freud called sublimation a virtuous defence mechanism because it is in the arts that we can find our humanity.

Think not of the fragility of life, but of the power of books, when mere words have the ability to change our lives simply by being next to each other.