It's not surprising to me that books ended up playing a central role in my life, but it is somewhat mysterious that poetry did.

People who publish poetry today do it from a sense that poetry needs to be published, not because they think they are going to make money.

Poetry resonates differently in each culture; it doesn't in America.

I like each of my books to be different. Once I've done something I like to move on and push myself to learn new things and expand the limits of poetic form.

Poems are language turned into art; sound and sense matter; they can be as long or longer than The Odyssey or as short or shorter than a haiku. Not very helpful.

Many other cultures value poetry more than we do. In Ireland, poetry is a top cultural pursuit, the art to end all arts.

A poem employs both the sound and the sense of language, it treats words not just as signifiers but as a plastic medium of artistic expression.

I tend to write poetry that is rich in data of various sorts. The lyric poem isn't perfectly suited to accommodating such data, so I've had to find new ways to say everything that I want to say.

The culture stays alive, but certain parts of it die or fail, and that's very interesting to me.

We do need an attitude of leadership in our government which demonstrates faith in major population centres outside of Perth.

Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.

Don’t complicate whatever is not complicated.

Love is the most incredible gift to give and to receive as a human being.

It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe: indeed, if one may say so, we should do nothing else besides.

Kosovo today is closer to Europe than other countries in the region of South Eastern Europe.

So I'm running in the park on Saturday, in shorts, thinking this [warm weather] is great, but are we all gonna die? You know? I can't, I can't figure this out.

In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $724,000.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset - tears are words waiting to be written.