I lived a life I knew I had to hide My father's edicts resolutely grim.

I think that the people who really accomplish things in this world have to have a little bit of crazy in them.

I like when a poem ends on its "receipts," meaning it gives me something tactile or tangible to dwell on as I exit the reading experience. So I strive to end my own poems that way as well.

I write to be recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self - all of those different aspects of it.

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

Poetry is such an ancient art, and I consider myself young within that art.

I write a lot, and then forget what I've written, and then come back to it and say, "Not bad, I should do something with this!"

Only after my father's death could I speak my own individual truths about him. In a sense, I had to turn him into a character, a figure I could control through language.

Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.

Editing is work, and it's hard to do while working on one's own writing.

There's a book for everyone, even if they don't think there is. A book that reaches in and grabs your soul.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.

I prefer for things to happen serendipitously, but honestly, I also love terrible pickup lines.

I shall be glad when you have strangled the invincible respectability that dogs your steps.

I've always wanted two lives - one for the movies, one for myself.

I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger.

I also won one from the emperor of Japan, with a prize for the arts. That's important.

As communist atheists allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I'd leave not the smallest place for satan in mine.

In design, Mother Nature is our best teacher.