By writing... in the language of his society, a poet takes a large step toward it. It is society's job to meet him halfway, that is, to open his book and read it.

By and large, prisons are survivable, though hope is indeed what you need least upon entering here; a lump of sugar would be more useful.

The more one reads poetry, the less tolerant one becomes of any sort of verbosity, be that in political or philosophical discourse, be that in history, social studies or the art of fiction.

Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.

This assumption that the blue collar crowd is not supposed to read it, or a farmer in his overalls is not to read poetry, seems to be dangerous if not tragic.

I belong to Russian literature, but I am an American citizen, and I think it's the best possible combination.

The unbearableness of the future is easier to face than that of the present if only because human foresight is much more destructive than anything that the future can bring about.

A man is, after all, what he loves. But one always feels cornered when asked to explain why one loves this or that person, and what for. In order to explain it - which inevitably amounts to explaining oneself - one has to try to love the object of one's attention a little bit less.

The one who writes a poem writes it above all because verse writing is an extraordinary accelerator of conscience, of thinking, of comprehending the universe.

The poetic notion of infinity is far greater than that which is sponsored by any creed.

No man-made system is perfect, and the system of oppression is no exception. It is subject to fatigue, to cracks, which you are the likelier to discover the longer your term.

Life has a great deal up its sleeve.

For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.

Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.

I don't suppose that I know more about life than anyone of my age, but it seems to me that, in the capacity of an interlocutor, a book is more reliable than a friend or a beloved.

Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.

This is the generation whose first cry of life was the Hungarian uprising.

Bad literature is a form of treason.

It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.

I started to write when I was eighteen or nineteen. However, until I was about twenty-three, I didn't take it that seriously.

Nothing convinces an artist more of the arbitrariness of the means to which he resorts to attain a goal - however permanent it may be - than the creative process itself, the process of composition.

Regardless of whether one is a writer or a reader, one's task consists first of all in mastering a life that is one's own, not imposed or prescribed from without, no matter how noble its appearance may be. For each of us is issued but one life, and we know full well how it all ends.

For some odd reason, the expression 'death of a poet' always sounds somewhat more concrete than 'life of a poet.'

After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.

The invention of ethical and political doctrines, which blossomed into our own social sciences, is a product of times when things appeared manageable. The same goes for the criticism of those doctrines, though as a voice from the past, this criticism proved prophetic.

To put it mildly, nothing can be turned and worn inside out with greater ease than one's notion of social justice, public conscience, a better future, etc.

Because civilizations are finite, in the life of each of them there comes a moment when the center ceases to hold. What keeps them at such times from disintegration is not legions but language.

My views on piracy and illegal streaming are I think it's illegal for a reason, and I feel like there's a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to get the fights going and showing things on TV.

Know that the power comes from within: when you are tired, or you want to give up, dig deep. Dig deep for whatever reason - in boxing, in sport, in life.

There are good life skills to be had in the sport. It is a big positive to see young kids coming to the gym, training hard, looking up to the likes of David Tua, Shane Cameron, and possibly myself.

My dad loves boxing, so he used to hold up his hands when we were little kids, and we would punch his hands, and he slowly got us little gloves, and little punching bags that he'd always hold for us.

When you take a break from something you love doing, you just feel like it's time to get back into it; you feel like you've been missing out on something.

Having watched the Botha fight, I wanted to get him out of there, but I didn't really want to hurt him as bad.

I'm getting more confident in what I can do in the ring, and that just comes with hard work and training.

If I train hard and have a great training camp, and I'm as prepared as I can be, I can take any heavyweight in the world.

I've put my degree on hold, but I will finish it.

So I have, like, more than a 100 cousins all over the world now.

I feel good about my first professional fight. I was ready for it, and it was a good win for me.

You not only have to box smart, you have to be ruthless in the ring.

My Pacific Island genes will never allow me to be the most ripped, but I think I can get pretty close to it.

I was upset about not going to the Olympics. It was a dream of mine, and I'd been working at it for a long time. But I've turned pro now; it's in the past, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Walking down the street, it's a humbling feeling. Everyone stopping you for photos and autographs, it's real humbling.

As an amateur, there are three rounds, and you have to give it all you have, throw as many punches as you can.

I dropped Nascimento in the first round, but he came back, and I had to dig really deep because he was gaining the whole time. He ruptured my left ear drum with a right hand in the fifth round, which caused a few hearing problems, but I was able to overcome it.

I believe that every fight we've had is a big fight, and every fight we've had is a fight where I've learned a lot of things in the ring, I learn about myself, and it's sort of pushed me to know where I can go.

After a good training camp, pushing myself, learning new things, I always feel confident coming back to New Zealand.

We have a great set-up in Las Vegas. I love being in Vegas; all our camps will be in Vegas. We are just going to spend more time in the U.K. in terms of fighting. But New Zealand will still be home for me.

I don't ever want to be a punch drunk.

I didn't make the Olympics, but I beat a lot of the guys that went to the Olympics, so I felt I was at that level even though I didn't make it.