I've spent much of my life being attuned to watching for an image or a phrase that can trigger what might be a poem - could become a poem.

I have thought for many years that the audience any creative writer imagines has a great effect on what gets written.

One of the most important differences I see between prose and poetry is the music of the language.

I see my poems as interlinked. No poem gives an answer. It may offer other questions, it may instigate other questions that then become poems.

The poem is a process, a way for me to discover questions, to ask them clearly or to discover the results of certain suppositions. Suppositions are a form of questioning.

Poetry doesn't function by saying things straightforwardly because the language is too imprecise, too limited often, to address the underlying subject of most poems.

Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem.

My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to be able to restate it.

The greatest tragedy that can befall a poet is to be praised by being misunderstood.

I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps.

I'd rather call prose poems something else, for clarity - something like "poetic prose," prose that contains a quality of poetry, but not poems.

You would rather opt for death than give up. Because, what a way to live a mediocre life by choice?

Theories look great on paper until reality scribbles all over the page.

Science is knowledge arranged and classified according to truth, facts, and the general laws of nature.

A luxury liner is really just a bad play surrounded by water.

For me, my business is my business and my house is my house. I don't want the public in my house.

If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.

I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.

when the people of any country choose peace at all costs, not even generals can make war.

Berlusconi's advice to Italians trying to escape poverty: "Do it my way and earn more money".

A samurai should always be prepared for death - whether his own or someone else's.