Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy.

Time passes. That's for sure.

Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know What the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone.

Part of the glamour of being a poet was always this long reach into the future. You knew you were managing time.

Poetry is my politics. It's an opportunity that gives me a way to speak.

Urban nature is like living with mass conditions. It sometimes feels like a myth & you are its scribe.

The poet is like the wise fool or like a version of the stand-up, because we're standing, we're doing stand-up. That's exactly what we're doing.

I always think of childhood as the inarticulate moment, and you have your little camera. You were filming it, recording it, you just didn't know how to speak it.

Women aren't physically afraid of men; women are genetically afraid of men. It's happened for such a long time.

I'm a poet born in the era of Andy Warhol and a generation that wanted to be famous.

Art feels like it has this frame, and it's either outside or inside.

Science can’t explain why two specific people are magnetically drawn to each other instead of repelled. Only love can.

We must reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life.

Maternal health remains a staggering challenge, particularly in the developing world. Globally, a woman dies from complications in childbirth every minute.

Without humility of heart all the other virtues by which one runs toward God seem - and are - absolutely worthless.

Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.

My sister married a German. He complained he couldn't get a good bagel back home. I said: 'Well, whose fault is that?'

You know the way people begin to look like their dogs? Well, we're beginning to look like each other.

Because the truth of God is love, conversion to God is conversion to love.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

Education is more valuable than money, in the long run.