My mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.

The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.

I write what's given me to write.

My earliest poems were a way of talking to somebody. I suppose to myself.

I still believe in this country, that it can fulfill the destiny Blake and Whitman envisioned. I still believe in American poetry.

How weightless/ words are when nothing will do.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back.

There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory.

You have begun to separate the dark from the dark.

I realized poetry's the thing that I can do 'cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity.

No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the purpose of light is to create more light, to open people's eyes, to reveal the marvels around.

Nurtured by negative circumstances, braiding raging tornadoes in her hair, she held her head high, wearing her weathered poetry with pride.

Every great brand is like a great story.

It's not like it used to be where everybody has a record company to belong to.

We may not be weaklings because we have a strong enemy.

What a writer brings to any story is an attitude

Sometimes, even if there was no useful advice to give, I saw that listening still helped.

To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.

I believe that this whole question of some photography being true and some untrue is a non-question. Photography is not objective; it never was objective.

Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.