It is easier to gnaw through bone. Than the hide of the heart.

Poetry uses the hub of a torque converter for a jello mold.

I try. I am trying. I was trying. I will try. I shall in the meantime try. I sometimes have tried. I shall still by that time be trying.

Poetry is road maintenance for a fragmented world which seeks to be kept together. It's been an integral activity for a long time.

Who thinks of justice unless he knows injustice?

Words - as I speak or write them - make a path on which I walk.

The word is important in Native American tradition. You speak the path on which you walk. Your words make the trail.

Who creates unless he has a vacuum to fill?

20th century poetry is a piñata. Images break from the earth when the poet strikes it.

You can't improve anything if you don't first know what needs to be improved.

My dad was very much a struggling actor and spent more of his life as a postman, as a member of a tarmac firm, as a van driver.

I guess it all depends on your nature. Some people can't stand being alone. I love solitude and silence. But when I come out of it, I'm a regular talking machine. It's all or nothing for me.

Dear, never forget one little point. It's my business. You just work here.

Today, especially, it's a really unclear situation in terms of where the Israelis are at, and where the Palestinians are at, the world is kind of changing around us.

Then at one point I did not need to translate the notes; they went directly to my hands

People always tell me I'm going to regret not having kids. But what if I have one and then I regret having it? Has anyone thought of that option?

In hell they will bore you, in heaven you will bore them.

When civic leaders are in love with their cities they are listened to; they are credible.

You know it doesn’t work that way, T. I have to be touching the body or something that belonged to the victim. Photos only give me a paper cut…and the willies. (Simone)