I'm always doing poems from a place of not-knowing, a place of ignorance in a way.

I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.

It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost.

Once you realize that human actions affect every bit of earth and sky, you realize that the environment isn't just what surrounds us - it's all one whole.

I am a result of what has happened on this planet - how could I find the art to say that? I can't, and yet, I am drawn to it because of the enormity of it. That seems really important.

Bringing science into poetry is one way of acknowledging some of the richest stuff that is in my cultural moment.

I've been accused of darkness by my inner light.

I don't know much about death and the sorriest lesson I've learned is that words, my most trusted guardians against chaos, offer small comfort in the face of anyone's dying.

What keeps me level is the refusal to let the best of human aspirations die in the face of the challenges. I make a moral decision to be hopeful.

We're nature. Our minds are nature. Our desire to make poetry is nature.

As writers, the world is not about individual expression entirely because we are producing works of literature and getting them out into the world.

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

Reading might be the root of ideas and inventions, even in the case of leisure reading.

Sometimes, the biggest secrets you can only tell a stranger.

He who goes step by step always finds himself level with a step.

I love the healthy exchange of information.

The cross is not just a badge to identify us...it is also the compass which gives us our bearings in a disoriented world.

There's the most resistance to an actor singing. It's like I'm being disloyal to my industry.

Fairness, does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young. ~ The blue man

I think there was an overemphasis in the early stage on militarization rather than directly providing relief. I don't think it has any long-term significance.

You do not become a star, you are born a star. A star is born with that indefinable extra something.