Quotes from Rod McKuen

We come into the world alone. We go away the same. We're meant to spend the interlude between in closeness or so we tell ourselves. But it's a long way from the morning to the evening.

The journey back is always longer than the forward run.

Poetry is fact given over to imagery.

I've come to terms with it, it knows I know.

I am not convinced the truth can make men free, but I believe it a beginning.

For many people, I was a phase, a part of the period of growing up. People ask me why I connected. It was presumptuous of me to say, but I'm Everyman. The difference is I put my thoughts into words.

We need sex education in schools, but we need it at home first. We need parents to learn the names of the teachers who are teaching their children. We need families to question day-care centers, to question other children and their own as to what goes on.

Even when you feel you've reached the end or edge of life, hold on. Life itself will ultimately take care of you.

There has never been a cat Who couldn't calm me down By walking slowly Past my chair.

Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.

I've been going a long time now along the way I've learned some things. You have to make the good times yourself take the little times and make them into big times and save the times that are all right for the ones that aren't so good.

It's nice sometimes to open up the heart a little and let some hurt come in. It proves you're still alive.

These long years later it is worse for I remember what it was as well as what it might have been.

Unless you call attention to your presence who will know you're there? Even a country has to weave and wave a flag as proof of its existence.

Be gentle with me, new love. Treat me tenderly. I need the gentle touch, the soft voice, the candlelight after nine. There's been so many who didn't understand so give me all the love I see in your timid eyes but give it gently Please.

How can we be sure of anything the tide changes. The wind that made the grain wave gently yesterday blows down the tress tomorrow. And the sea sends sailors crashing on the rocks, as easily as it guides them safely home. I love the sea but it doesn't make me less afraid of it I love you but I'm not always sure of what you are and how you feel.

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen

It happens just because we need to want and to be wanted too, when love is here or gone to lie down in the darkness and listen to the warm.

For every star that falls to earth a new one glows. For every dream that fades away a new one grows. When things are not what they would seem you must keep following your dream.

We will all wake up semi-angels, If we wake at all.

This is the way it was while I was waiting for your eyes to find me.

Theres no misery in not being loved, only in not loving

I have fallen in love with the world And I am aware that I have chosen the most dangerous lover of them all.

and if the world breaks down, I'll be around.