In the annals of history few men have left a more positive imprint on the world than Pope John Paul II.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

However I must say that I am very happy to see that we have such a positive result for our first referendum in our history and that gives me more confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used that's great.

I was totally absorbed in the real world the politics the history the news and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel it was in fits and starts.

But poetry is a way of language it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats almost 100 years old now and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

I had art as a major along with English French and History. I had dance modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry which I eventually got published.

I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.

Even if you only want to write science fiction you should also read mysteries poetry mainstream literature history biography philosophy and science.

Cut quarrels out of literature and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.

More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.

For me poetry is a situation - a state of being a way of facing life and facing history.

I will try to work for greater reconciliation cooperation and peace in North East Asia based on correct perception of history.

Since creation of the E.U. a half century ago Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history.

If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races nations or peoples there can be no peace.

I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.