Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

The only way to overcome fear and doubt is to go against them.

The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.

Private passions grow tired and wear themselves out; political passions, never.

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned.

Science works as a way to make sense of life and the universe. Hard SF as my preferred fictional genre just feels natural.

Money is always transitively valued. More money is supposedly always better than less money.

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

My timing is so precise, a heckler would have to make an appointment just to get a word in.

They say God looks after kids and idiots, and I think actors are probably a combination of the two.

I have watched constantly that in our work the highest moral and spiritual standards are upheld, whether my productions deal with fable or with stories of living action.