Rod McKuen Quotes & Sayings

If I could do it over, I'd do better. — Rod McKuen

I'm not the first man or the last
who had a thirst to leave the past. — Rod McKuen

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

Sometimes I think people were meant to be strangers.
Not to get to know one another,
not to get close enough to damage the heart
made older by each new encounter. — Rod McKuen

No map to help us find the tranquil flat lands, clearings calm, fields without mean fences. Rolling down the other side of life our compass is the sureness of ourselves. Time may make us rugged, ragged round the edges, but know and understand that love is still the safest place to land. — Rod McKuen

Now is next to nothing compared to where I've been. — Rod McKuen

I will not ask you where you have been tonight
I'll only say hello
and hope. — Rod McKuen

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

Thank you for the sun you brought this morning
even though the sky was full of clouds. — Rod McKuen

The journey back is always longer than the forward run. — Rod McKuen

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

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. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

Poetry is fact given over to imagery. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

Love is a sweet thing caught a moment
and held in a golden eye. — Rod McKuen

I went back to look for you.
Not understanding the language of hello,
I thought I'd speak it just the same. — Rod McKuen

Extending your hand is extending yourself. — Rod McKuen

Did you think of party dresses
and high school plays
or hallways full of lovers not yet met? — Rod McKuen

I cannot speculate on what our cluttered mind will save- sleepy Sundays, or a nosebleed after love. I know only the dying heart needs the nourishment of memory to live beyond too many winters. — Rod McKuen

I was rich in those days, for a week I had everything. I wish I'd known you then. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

It seems to me that it's every man's obligation to make what contribution he can. You live each day as best you can. That, to me, is what makes life interesting. — Rod McKuen

Once I thought ideas were exceptions not the rule. That is not so. Ideas are so plentiful that they ride on air. You have only to reach out and snatch one. — Rod McKuen

The world needs writers. We will always be necessary. There are few professions that can claim that distinction. — Rod McKuen

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

If you love somebody, tell them. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

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

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. — Rod McKuen

Laws and machines are shaped to fit the classes. — Rod McKuen

Theres no misery in not being loved,
only in not loving — Rod McKuen

Always I glance both ways.
Why chance missing love
wherever she or he may lurk? — Rod McKuen

The gifts that one receives for giving are so immeasurable that it is almost an injustice to accept them. — Rod McKuen

Watch the indolent butterfly playing on the tall flower in the yard and think about the sun going down. It always does you know. — Rod McKuen

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

Sorry no one could see how beautifully happy we were. — Rod McKuen

I try not to put messages in my songs. My only message is man's communication with his fellow man. I want to narrow the gap of strangeness and alienation. — Rod McKuen

I had a pet raccoon that took my tooth brush once,
But only to another room. — Rod McKuen

Everybody has the answers or they'll make them up for you. Just once I'd like to hear a brand-new question. — Rod McKuen

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

Who is not a love seeker when December comes? Even children pray to Santa Claus. — Rod McKuen

I can't understand people who give up and commit suicide. If I have a bad day, I figure tomorrow will be better. And even if it isn't, at least it isn't any worse. — Rod McKuen

Crowded rooms and lonesome tunes and very little sky. — 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. — Rod McKuen

There is no other way to find ourselves but in each others faces. — Rod McKuen

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen — Rod McKuen

Looking back few friends had we
but I've got him and he's got me.
And when the golden minute comes
when we no longer wake to smell
the river where the wild swans sailed
the orchard where the blossoms fell,
we'll smile a little thinkin' of that.
Me in my shirt-tails, him with his whiskers
me and the cat. — Rod McKuen

People are not born bastards. They have to work at it. — Rod McKuen

Never fear being alone, because you never are. — Rod McKuen

Do not ask the definition of a friend. He/She is that one without whose company death and dying set in earlier and living is made more pleasurable. — Rod McKuen

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

I felt that some of my work was OK. If I could do it over, I'd do better. — Rod McKuen

You know, in a way, I wish I could hate a little more. It would make me a more rounded personality. — Rod McKuen

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

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

A poet can't afford to be aloof. The tools of his trade are the people he bumps up against. — Rod McKuen

I was tired. I peaked. I left when I was on top. One year, I did 280 concerts. — Rod McKuen

To understand others you should get behind their eyes and walk down their spines. — Rod McKuen

May your hand be full for always if only with another hand. May your heart be empty only long enough to give you cause to fill it up again with love. May your soul be lost by you only to be found by God. — Rod McKuen

Eternity sneaks in
her arms full of wild promises. — Rod McKuen

I have never known a cat that couldn't quiet me down just by walking slowly past my chair. — Rod McKuen

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. — Rod McKuen

I want to see the world within the circle of your arms and sail the wide sea of your thighs. — Rod McKuen