I'm seventy-one now, so it's hard to imagine a dramatic change.

The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

I write what's given me to write.

My earliest poems were a way of talking to somebody. I suppose to myself.

I still believe in this country, that it can fulfill the destiny Blake and Whitman envisioned. I still believe in American poetry.

How weightless/ words are when nothing will do.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back.

There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.

You have begun to separate the dark from the dark.

I realized poetry's the thing that I can do 'cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

I hate actors who come and quote Nietzsche.

It is our duty to serve those who serve us.

I cannot get any sense of an enemy - only of a disaster.

You know, my background, I was at a non-profit for years.

I believe all religions are becoming obsolete, clinging to ancient concepts.

Nobody in college races home and says, 'I can't wait to see the news! I can't wait to see who CBS is going to hire!'

And to all of you, what it really comes down to is: If you're buying a book with my name on it, I feel I owe it to you to have it be the best book that I can make it.

I curse Microsoft at least once a day. I only curse Apple every other day. As I see it, that's a 100 percent improvement.

Here's the thing: The book that will most change your life is the book you write.