“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown you must believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught how to fly.” Patrick Overton, American poet

“We are not committed to this or that. We are committed to the nothing in between . . . whether we know it or not.” John Cage, American composer, 1912 – 1992

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce, American author, born 1926

“When you’ve got it, there’s no place for it but a poem.” – Ch’an Master Wu-Pen, Zen Master, 807-869

“The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.”  – Christopher Morley, American poet, 1890-1957

“Outside of poetry there is no Zen, outside of Zen there is no poetry.” – Ten’in Ryataku, Zen Buddhist monk, 1422-1500

“Poems are just stories… with the boring parts left out.” – W.H. Auden, English poet, 1907–1973

“Fear and faith cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Choose one.” – Kathleen McGowan, The Book of Love

“Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.” – Ludwig Borne, Deutsche writer, journalist, and satirist, 1786-1837.

“Who cares what I meant? What does it mean to you?” – Joni Mitchell, singer, songwriter, personal icon to me, born 1943.

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. ” –Oscar Wilde, wacky Irish dramatist, novelist and poet, 1854-1900

“The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” – Huang-Po, Chinese master of Zen Buddhism, 720-840

“I want all my friends to come up like weeds, and I want to be a weed myself, spontaneous and unstoppable.” – Roger Deakin, writer and environmentalist, 1943 – 2006