I worked in an art gallery for a few years, doing administrative assistance stuff, and it exposed me to what the whole world of art dealers and the art market was about.

I think translation is an impossible job, and I admire the people who do it in a way that brings poetry to us that we wouldn't have access to.

Rhythms and sounds are often the first thing I hear and want in a poem, so I can't imagine trying to translate something without at least being able to hear what it sounds like.

It takes courage to get clear about what your vision of the work is and to be persistent about it and pursue it, whatever you're saying. I'm still in a long learning process.

Whether the poet is living or dead, they're part of our imaginative community.

People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that.

Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead.

I'm much more capable of cutting back than of expanding. I've gotten very surgical about poems.

I'm trying to stay open to the idea that the Internet is not the evil foe of publishing but the handmaiden that will turn out to be a blessing for poets and writers.

There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me.

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise

If you carry a sword, you obey the sword, not the other way round. Nobody can hold a weapon and keep their hands clear of blood at the same time.

Our identities are tremendously warped and distorted by yesterday's trauma and tomorrow's expectations.

If you're designing out of a purely creative place, not thinking of the girl, then the consumer's not going to take notice.

You can't go into the office and be a jerk. You can't yell at your kids or your wife or your husband for no reason. That makes you a terrible person.

My desk is covered with talismans: pieces of rose quartz, wishing stones from a favorite beach.

Faith is an outward look, not an inward look.

Most of you are predominantly nagual. You have trouble with the physical life because you have devoted more of your attention to the mysterious side of your being.

Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church.