I have always loved too much, or not enough.

You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake.

Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.

That's how it is sometimes--God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you're just too tired to open it.

A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its own way in the world.

Every good poem asks a question, and every good poet asks every question.

Every poem I write falls short in some important way. But I go on trying to write the one that won’t.

We continue to speak, if only in whispers, to something inside us that longs to be named.

Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely that when they are cut, you're the one that bleeds.

Maybe it's what we don't say/that saves us.

We're all writing out of a wound, and that's where our song comes from. The wound is singing. We're singing back to those who've been wounded.

Truth is its own defense, therefore if something can’t speak for itself, it’s not truth.

No problem is ever solved in the same consciousness thas was used to create it.

An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident.

I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.

Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.

My husband and I had five biological children but we also have been raising 23 foster children.

I promote my value to others with passion and enthusiasm.

I admire all people who are trying to be a good power in this chaotic world.