I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

Amy sat back and grinned. "You just smiled." That was definitely something else she could get used to.Of course, he frowned immediately. "I smile.

One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.

Men with Honor are not killed by swords, they die of Shame.

From the end spring new beginnings.

A responsibility of literature is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.

To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language.

I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.

I don't really have a dream collaboration.

We must be brief when traitors brave the field.