If we think of what's up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it's very frightening.

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.

You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart.

Poetry, above all is a series of intense moments ­ its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion.

I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.

When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.

Friendship is communion.

It is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.

It's amazing how dumb people can impress you with how much stupider they can be when they really assert themselves.

I hate to see a woman cry, unless of course I'm crying first in which case I feel it's appropriate.

I’m not sad about any of my life. It’s so unconventional. It doesn’t look anything like I thought it would.

I made nothing happen very slowly.

So when you make an impression in a certain kind of role, that tends to be the type of role that you get offered.

We are what we eat, so I eat as many veggies as I can!

And sometimes when we listen, we are led into places we do not expect, into adventures we do not always understand.

My favorite fighter is Phil Baroni, and I’m pretty sure it’s yours too.