I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

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.

Some things are private. Some things needed to be said, even when the person who needed to hear them couldn’t hear anything. Ever again.

ON LIVING LIFE WISELY - To make the right choices, you have to be at peace with yourself.

In Russia, drunks are our kindest people. Our kindest people are also the most drunk.

Learning to pay attention to how your body feels can offer you rich guidance about your choices and direction in life.

I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.

The road to Hades is easy to travel; at any rate men pass away with their eyes shut.

Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.

It's so dreadful to have nothing to love - life is so empty - and there's nothing worse than emptiness.

My mother, she smiles when I come around now. My daughter's eatin' decent meals and she's in private school. She's 4 years old. She started school. It's a beautiful thing.

To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people.