It took me awhile to not be ashamed to be a poet in the business environment, and to be a business person in the poet environment.

Most people are trying to go digital, and trying to do different things with poetry. McSweeney's is going in the opposite direction - going more classic, and retro, which is all coming back.

I was sort of obsessed about corporate people committing suicide.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and other mornings I feel like crap.

I can't help but go against the grain, I suppose it is in my fabric to be a rule-breaker.

I am always reading, always, and tons of things at once. I wouldn't say I'm a voracious reader, though. I never finish books that fast, because I'm always reading so many things at once.

I think my way of being "funny" is just saying things that people think but have learned not to say, whereas, I haven't learned not to say them.

There's an attraction to emotional clusters or hypocrisies or awkwardness. A desire to expose something or point at something that's already poking out.

I feel like I give myself all day long to other people and other things, and I still seem like I have something to write once in awhile. Not often, though.

I think I've always felt very isolated, and I'm sure lots of poets do.

I think e-mail and social media and all that has made me feel way less isolated than ever before.

If human beings were really progressive creatures, then all boys would be smarter, healthier, and, wealthier, than their grandfathers.

Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.

Gossip till the cows come home.

I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me.

It can't be 'true' love without the truth

You're chained to you reason ... Understanding is only a very small affair, so very small

Nothing but good times ahead.

Bread without butter or coffee without milk is an awful calamity, as if everything before being put in our mouth must first be held under a cow.

Incrementalism ceases to be a good strategy when there's a cliff on the route.

If you were a fully realized person-whatever the hell that would be-you wouldn't fool around writing books.