I started writing poetry because language was how I understood the world. It was a paradigm that made everything matter and in forms that were safe to hold what I felt.

Public work does not cut into personal creativity. They are streams from the same river but with different destinations.

As we all know, poets are born brain-wired a certain way and every poet I know wrote as a child. I'm no exception.

I get a huge energy transfusion from listening to poets read their works.

I write a book of poems and then the characters won't go away so I write a play from that.

If anything, hearing another poet is a sacred experience I enter, but I can honestly say this does not influence my own work.

I am a product of the "Hippie" theater movement of the '60s.

Injuries may be forgiven but not forgotten.

By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died because of extreme poverty. By this time tomorrow evening, another 30,000. This does not make sense.

Are you trying to get run over by a cab? Don't be ridiculous. We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood

A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence.

How is there going to be Peace when there is no Justice?

The people that I associate myself with are people that are looking to make a good product because it's going to benefit them and it's going to help launch their careers.

The domination of nature leads to the domination of human nature.

To have a Welch-caliber C.E.O. is impressive.To have a century of Welch-Caliber C.E.O.'s all grown from the inside - well, that is one key reason why G.E. is a visionary company.

Who do I look like, Nancy freaking Drew?

people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless - only they don't know it!