“After all, it is not where one washes one’s neck that counts but where one moistens one’s throat.”

“The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that's where it's at.”

“These were all the women whom Bluebeard had married, and whose throats he had cut one after the other.”

“Where does the hand become the wrist?
where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed
and then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us over that
razor's edge
between something and nothing, between
one and the other.”

“One day the water's gonna wash it away
One day the water's gonna wash it away
One day the water's gonna wash it away
And on that day, nothing clever to say.”

“All I want
Is one break
Which is not
My neck.”

“Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere”

“I will meet you on the nape of your neck one day, on the surface of intention, word becoming act.
We will breathe into each other the high mountain tales, where the snows come from, where the waters begin.”
-In the yellow time of pollen”

“A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”

“On one occasion the people cheered the team he opposed; he cried angrily: "I wish all you Romans had only one neck!"”
Infensus turbae faventi adversus studium suum exclamavit: "Utinam p. R. unam cervicem haberet!"