I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

His habit of reading isolated him: it became such a need that after being in company for some time he grew tired and restless ...

I am a man ruled by music- I live, die, fight and survive for it.

And so back to Cassie: who was she? Part of the deception

Sometimes it is only in our darkest hours that we show our true colours in life.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be loved by the man of my dreams.

Use God's mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil's strongholds.

You don't have to dislike people you disagree with and it doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have bipartisan friendships in this place. Life's too short to have it any other way.

Praying men are God's agents on earth, the representative of government of Heaven, set to a specific task on the earth.

Never run from what you don't understand, as it will be waiting for you every time you come to a stop.

I don't want to be married just to be married.