My first sense of myself was as an artist, a painter. I would see a Van Gogh painting and just love it, the more emotional and passionate the more it attracted me.

Every artist has his or her struggle to work out in their work. The more powerful the struggle, the more persuasive the art.

Art is a crime scene in a sense, a crucible, of the mind and heart and our dreams.

I'm the kind of father I wanted my father to be. That may be the sweetest revenge.

My poems often start with an idea, some kind of inspiration. I don't expect anything. Every now and then something like "The One Truth" comes out.

Happiness is a powerful thing. It freed me to do what I always wanted to do.

There are real facts in my poems, but facts mixed up in the perverse stubborn stew of imagination, add a pinch or two of revenge and retribution, a dash of amplification and reparation.

Am I the I she tried to save, still lopsided with trying to be a little less or more, escaping who I was a minute ago?

As a poet and a teacher, I read all the time. I know I read slowly. I like reading, but I don't read any more than I have to.

I never feel more alone than when I'm traveling. Alone and, to some extent, helpless. The world expects a certain level of competence and can be merciless when this expectation is unmet.

Discretion can be abused, and rulebooks are important safeguards against that. But the balance has shifted too far in the direction of an obsessive reverence for rules.

And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall.

I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings.

Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

I'm always happier and a better actor when I can really lose myself in a character and become somebody else.

I know the action in the street is excitin' But Jesus, between all the bleedin’ ‘n fightin’ I’ve been readin’ ‘n writin’.

In high school, I was Mr. Choir Boy. I had solos, I was helping out the tenors with their parts and our choir teacher would ask me what songs we should do.

There are no simple words. I don't know why I thought I could hide anything behind language.

I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television.

I don't ever feel that it's necessary to say certain things. I think we can be very suggestive. I think we can allude to certain things.