It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form confines you - whatever the form.

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way.

Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.

Don’t you know that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?

I'm like every other woman: a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear: So I wear jeans.

Too many rocks in the mountains.

Corporate money is controlling everything.

I can assure you that everything I say and do has the complete approval of the Fuehrer and that I would not say or do anything that does not have his approval.

It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.

But if you don't watch me, I will try and sneak in some humor. I see humor everywhere in life around me.

Your heart matters most, so be gentler and more patient with yourself, and their hearts matter most, too, so be kinder and more compassionate to others.