Even today, I'm much more comfortable dressed in a male kind of way.

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

Risk being seen in all of your glory.

Good thinkers are always in demand. A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.

The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.

As part of the process by which you hire me, you hire me. You just don't hire an hour of me to do a performance.

Be content to be what you are, and prefer nothing to it, and do not fear or wish for your last day.

Obedience is the pathway to blessing. It’s the means of protection. It’s the means of joy. It’s the means to finding God’s best in our lives.

Creativity needs to be exercised to grow strong.

The greatest movies are the ones you want to watch again and again.

I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.