I think family is very important in West Virginia and has long been so because the mountains made travel difficult in the past, and family members had to depend on each other.
I don't like to travel as much as I have in the past, but it's good for my soul to get to pick, especially with these good musicians and these guys that play so well.
We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.
In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively.
We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place.
People used to say everyone knows someone who's had breast cancer. In the past few weeks, I've learned something else: Everyone has someone close to them who has had breast cancer.
So this anchoring in some way, in some important way in the past without repeating the past, but on the basis of the past building something new: that is what is important.
Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.
This past year has been something else... it's opened my eyes to many things and many people. It's had its ups and downs and ins and outs. And I believe we've all been able to take something from that and grow in our own imparticular ways. We've over come obstacles, and set in motion opportunities that can change our own individual lives.
