I like to look at the interface between words and pictures and wonder about which comes first, a sort of chicken-or-egg type of question.

I don't like speed. I would have made a terrible Futurist. Even when I did take drugs, I never liked amphetamines and much preferred the slow taffy-pull of time that you get with opiates.

I tend to like poems that are short as well as funny. I love Joe Brainard and Aram Saroyan. And I think their sense of humor and minimalist approach are pretty radical.

In a machine, every part has a function. In a poem, every word needs to be there.

The earth has always supported me in all my endeavors. I trust it.

I tend to be a pretty spacey and scattered person, so anything that makes me feel "grounded" comes as a welcome relief.

I think the more stability a person has, the more they can follow esoteric or intellectual pursuits.

The inner and outer, the visible and invisible, the abstract and concrete - you've got to get the balance right (not that I do, but it's something to aim for).

Technology sounds quick and easy, but it ends up taking up too much of your time.

Sometimes you get lit students that know a lot about the canon but virtually nothing about contemporary poetry and vice versa. I like to mix things up.

When I shut off the verbal, I like to escape into the visual.

If we learn more than the doctor in areas of value to our health, it is our duty to apply this knowledge to the betterment of ourselves and our families.

Book tours and research provide a lot of travel - too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.

They had a big court battle over who got to keep me. Mom won; she made me live with Dad.

Each of us is a being in himself and a being in society, each of us needs to understand himself and understand others, take care of others and be taken care of himself.

I want to be as big as I can be. To me, being big is just playing in front of a lot of people. And that's my goal.

Some yards is better than none yards?

But we are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried.

Now go back and meet all those people who you think know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.

No factions? A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can't even fathom it. I imagine only chaos and isolation.

The eyes envy the mind.