I deliberately decided to write a kind of guide to leather bars for straight people, for people not into leather, so that people could see what it was all about.

I was much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre.

A literary influence is never just a literary influence. It's also an influence in the way you see everything - in the way you feel your life.

I was at a benefit for some imprisoned students in the '60s at San Francisco State, and there were lots of poets reading for the benefit: one was Elizabeth Bishop.

I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic.

I don't know how to sit outside myself and test against a hypothetical self who stayed home.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

As humans we look at things and think about what we've looked at. We treasure it in a kind of private art gallery.

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexual that I am confused to be attracted by, in effect, my own annihilation.

There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply.

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.

Imagination is a place where all the important answers live.

I'm a father; that's what matters most. Nothing matters more.

Intelligence essentially means that your intellect is sharp enough to see life the way it is.

Do you know what it takes to do [a global art project]? People, energy, glue.

Be pupils of the masses as well as their teachers.

Knowledge is the driving force that puts creative passion to work.

After being let go from CBS and looking for a year for work, I will never catch myself complaining about being too busy.

Remember finally, that the ashes that were on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.