Haiku is an art that seems dedicated to making people pay attention to the preciousness and particularity of every moment of existence. I think that poetry can do that.

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings, saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day.

Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.

Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter.

If you're imaginatively responsible to the place you live in, you understand the watershed.

The birds are silent in the woods. / Just wait: soon enough / You will be quiet too

Imagination runs through the places where we live like water. We need both things-a living knowledge of the land and a live imagination of it and our place in it- if we are going to preserve it.

Repetition makes us feel secure and variation makes us feel free.

Writing is an incessant process of discovery.

Coincidences mean you're on the right path.

One day I had nothing but my childhood to defend myself……….

The ultimate source of my mental happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destroy this except my own anger.

It takes courage to get clear about what your vision of the work is and to be persistent about it and pursue it, whatever you're saying. I'm still in a long learning process.

Arkansas is a curious and interesting community ... it is probably the most untouched and unawakened of all American states.

In every marriage the wife has to keep her mouth shut about at least one small thing her husband does that disgusts her.

This book, 'Stupid White Men,' has sold now over four million copies worldwide. Probably about half of that may be in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest, overseas.

Money never declines. Money just moves.

All beauteous things for which we live By laws of space and time decay. But Oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die.

I love to work. Doing things we love is how we relax, I think.