A poem is like a score for the human voice.

People who read poetry have heard about the burning bush, but when you write poetry, you sit inside the burning bush.

Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.

Memory is sweet. Even when it’s painful, memory is sweet.

Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.

While all bodies share the same fate, all voices do not.

There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Maybe being winged means being wounded by infinity.

Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

The knowledge that it takes to write a poem gets burnt up in the writing of the poem.

Some things never leave a person: scent of the hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight.

If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.

By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.

Beware of meat twice boiled, and an old foe reconciled.

In the fifties… we were so busy being cool that we didn’t know how to say the word love

Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.

The most powerful sign is that your work no longer enchants you - it's not deep, delightful, and mutually satisfying. When this happens, it may be time to look for new challenges.

The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.

Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages.

Heaven has no taste." "Now-" "And not one single sushi restaurant." A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.