I always revise when I publish in a book. So versions in magazines are sometimes slightly different.

One of the things I'm constantly telling my students is that they're never going to write a poem everyone gets, or if they do, they've failed. They should leave someone behind every time.

Human suffering is articulated in language; communication is how we seek help, consolation, etc.

I figure I write for people who are intelligent enough to do some labor. Lazy readers are not my ideal readers.

Revision is a good impulse to have.

I turned to human suffering because - this may sound odd - animal suffering is more difficult for me to deal with.

I like to move around in the landscape between poetry and prose, between the lyrical and the narrative.

I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find their perfect home.

I enjoy working on a number of projects - books - at once.

I tend to overuse the word "project" only because "book" is terrifying while I'm still in the middle of something. A project can fail. I don't want a book to fail.

I pay editors. I never ask friends or colleagues to work for free.

When you invest your life, you are multiplying it.

My fear is not death. I only fear GOD so as all of you should.

A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

I trow that countenance cannot lie,Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.

He who laughs.....lasts.

I think that, y'know, they seem to really love music, which means they'll stick with it. I think that Hanson could be really good in a few years, actually!

I'm a schizophrenic mix of wannabe glamourpuss and absolute slob, and my style is very much magistrate-meets-barmaid.

Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That's called doing your homework.

Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace.