Poetry does need a bit of ferocity. The only way to attend to the fractured world is to write a ferocious kind of music, to sing that volatility.

Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity, the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty.

The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose.

I found it incredibly challenging to write clear prose that had the dynamism that I wanted.

Well, we're all going to die, so mortality is a part of writing and life.

Being deeply aware of fragility and ecstasy seems to me an essential part of being alive and living fully - and there's no way for me to separate this from my poems.

I think of my best poems as vessels that I can or hope to fill with everything I have.

Power is the ability to direct or privent the current or future actions of other groups and individuals.

Teach [our girls] that there is a race with special needs which they and only they can help; that the world needs and is already asking for their trained, efficient forces.

You're breaking out of character, again.

Don't let despair mutate your flesh Look at my twisted stumps of thought See the fingers, listen to the voice I am slowly becoming the end of the line.

The rise and fall of Tony Montana, and what a way to go out.

Time, that aged nurse, Rocked me to patience.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.

I sometimes think about writing just to keep my mind active when I'm not working, but I don't think I would be good enough.

Quite likely the twentieth century is destined to see the natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of a bird.

There was a good moment in Islam when people were actually challenging authority at every level. Very different from the world we live in.