Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.

Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments ­ its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion.

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

There is nothing that can defeat you if it does not first capture your mind.

Tell one your thoughts, but beware of two. All know what is known to three

One of the immutable laws of being human is that the people who show up are the right people.

At every step the child should be allowed to meet the real experience of life the thorns should never be plucked from his roses.

Stick your head above the crowd and eventually somebody will throw a rock at it.

Not a word was spoken. The church bells all were broken.

When you want success as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful.

To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one's bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion.

After the bombing, most Iraqis saw what the perpetuators of this attack were trying to do.

There is, apparently, some law of nature decreeing that all home construction must double in its projected cost and take four times longer than originally anticipated.