Sam Hamill Quote: "I got interested in Zen when I was a teenage ..."

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I got interested in Zen when I was a teenage beatnik on the streets of San Francisco. And it was my interest in Zen, in part, that got me into the Marine Corps, because that was a ticket to Asia. So I spent a couple of years on Okinawa and began reading and thinking about how I wanted to go about conducting my life.
Sam Hamill / Poet
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I got interested in Zen when I was a teenage beatnik on the streets of San Francisco. And it was my interest in Zen, in part, that got me into the Marine Corps, because that was a ticket to Asia. So I spent a couple of years on Okinawa and began reading and thinking about how I wanted to go about conducting my life.
⇛ Sam Hamill (Poet)

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I'm a poet who practices Zen. And it's not, I'm somebody who practices Zen who writes poetry. There's no separation for me.

Sam Hamill Poet

It would be nice if all the Republicans could put poetry in a little box and put the box under the bed and sit on it, but they can't.

Sam Hamill Poet

I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center.

Sam Hamill Poet

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

Sam Hamill Poet

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William Shatner Actor

Even if you're a poet sitting in your room writing a poem, you're still in the world - although I guess being a poet is a different than having to deal with 40 or 50 people to raise a couple million bucks and all that bullshit.