"I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future."

"When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on."

"I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world."

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."

"The hope of the nation which throughout the nineteenth century had not for a moment reconciled itself with the loss of independence, and fighting for its own freedom, fought at the same time for the freedom of other nations."

"It is a profound truth that where compassion abides, fear and resentment lose their dominion."

"Every sunset is a reminder that every failure is just a stepping stone to greatness."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."