Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

Liberalism is I think resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are.

For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers. For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.

For whatever reason people including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading do not read poetry.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally but reason does not relieve us of them.

Dealing with poetry is a daunting task simply because the reason one does it as an editor at all is because one is constantly coming to terms with one's own understanding of how to understand the world.

The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the Japanese student if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western poetry.

You know in my music career there was a moment where the irony was just so heavy. There were people in my audience that were the reason I developed neuroses. These people that tortured my life were using my art my poetry as fuel for them to torture other people.

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

In their heyday the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode New Order or The Cure but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.

The conflict in the Middle East needs to be solved for the same reasons. It is necessary to reach a two-states solution built on international law for sustainable peace and development and it can only be achieved through joint efforts by the international community.

The Nobel Prize is an honor unique in the world in having found its way into the hearts and minds of simple people everywhere. It casts a light of peace and reason upon us all and for that I am especially grateful.

I know of no more important subject to the peace of Europe and the world than the reasonable reduction of armaments especially in Europe and of naval armaments throughout the world.

I say at this point for different reasons Bush and Hussein are both very threatening to world peace and to deny that is to be incredibly naive.