Our lives are short and everything sort of regresses to the mean.

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.

I am what I am and what I have always been, a poor soul on a journey.

Imagination of a place, attracted the possibility of my travel to the place.

Ah, don't let us undo what you've done!' she cried. 'I can't go back now to that other way of thinking. I can't love you unless I give you up.

You get the kids today into the sport, and then they can't get to the "next level." I mean, come on, that's a bunch of junk.

To claim that wines should not be changed is a heresy; the palate becomes saturated and after the third glass the best of wines arouses nothing but an obscure sensation.

The process of learning should be as far as possible a pleasurable one and not laborious

The journey is made easier when we can accept that the process of living is designed for what matters to come through us tenderly.

I guess when I first started speaking with an American accent, there's a tendency to create a caricature of the accent because you just exaggerate the pieces that stand out to you.

There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.

For 40 hours a week competition is awfully stiff but after that there's very little competition .