Many of my poems try to use a comic element to reach a place that isn't comic at all. The comic element works as a surprise. It is unexpected and energizing.

Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

One writes a poem when one is so taken up by an emotional concept that one is unable to remain silent.

A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

Actions have consequences. Ignorance about the nature of those actions does not free a person from responsibility for the consequences. (28)

I write poems to find out why I write them

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

I'm reading a manuscript by Rodney Jones, "Village Prodigies",it's one of the best contemporary poetry books I've ever read ever.

Each thing I do, I rush through, so I can do something else.

Baudelaire's L'Héautontimorouménos was long seen to be a sexual sadomasochistic poem, it is now generally accepted that the poem is about writing poetry.

I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

When you face fear head on, it is no more!

A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself.

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

All of your errors have not built a wall against your success. They have paved your way to it.

You dare your Yes - and experience a meaning...You repeat your Yes - and all things acquire a meaning...When everything has a meaning, how can you live anything but a YES.

I grew up reading crime fiction and, especially in the '80s, women were just there to be saved or screwed.

I wish my deadly foe, no worse than want of friends, and empty purse.

They say 'He cannot be found'. Something that cannot be 'found' is what I desire.

As people get older, they get married, have kids. I'm not married. I don't have kids, so I'm able to focus 100 percent on this.

I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.