For more than a decade, I’ve maintained a list of quotes I like by poets, writers, and thinkers I find interesting. This post is part of that series. All posts in the series are organized alphabetically.

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Whatever work you’re trying to do now to benefit the world, sink into that. Get a full taste of that. — His Holiness the Karmapa

Gary Snyder / is a haiku / far away — Jack Kerouac

The closer you get to real matter, rock, air, firewood, boy, the more spiritual the world is. — Jack Kerouac

And the breeze wound through my mouth and empty sockets / so my lungs would sigh and my dead tongue mutter. — Carolyn Kizer

My knees were hung with tin triangular medals / to cure all forms of hysterical disease. — Carolyn Kizer

O what a bright day it was! / This empty body danced on the river bank. — Carolyn Kizer

When he found my torso, he called it his canoe, / and, using my arms as paddles, / he rowed me up and down the scummy river. — Carolyn Kizer

Half the world wants to be like Thoreau worrying about the noise of traffic on the way up to Boston; the other half use up their lives being part of that noise. I like the second half. — Franz Kline

The mud we go through / In the mornings / To say we are here, / On the literal edge / Where we don’t know / The draft and heat / Of summertime again. — Noelle Kocot