American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.

I do not read newspapers. I do not watch television. I am not interested in current events, although I will occasionally discuss them if other people want to discuss them.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events.

High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.

Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.

American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.

Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.

I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.

Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet's pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader's pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

I've got a gut feeling in my stomach. . .

The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach

You write the script, and then you just go over it 400 times and make all the jokes better. It really is true. That's essentially the way it works.

The habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings.

People, as critical as it looks, we're OK. We are in control, whether we feel it or not.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.

The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.

I am proud that I have devoted all my life to the struggle for the triumph of Leninism.

In the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!