Poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me. I like to poem my way through tricky questions and ideas. That's about the only consistent thread through my poem-creation process.

Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

This world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom," she's going to call me "Point B," because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

It does not matter how strong your gravity is, we were always meant to fly.

Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur; people and faces all become a massive wash.

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you've done something wrong but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.

Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.

You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

Those who say ‘I am ready to learn’, or ‘I am not ready to learn’ are as often mistaken as they are correct in their surmise.

Once, my mother told a whole host of angels that she’d rather die than go back to a man she didn’t love.

Mausoleum n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.

It's really nice to have someone who's intelligent and articulate to talk to about what you're doing, because it's a big part of who we are.

I feel beautiful. I feel strong, and I feel confident in who I am.

In the art world Robert Rauschenberg had been combining common materials that people thought was art and beautiful, and it was. If he could do that, I could emulate him.

I get uncomfortable in large groups of people and loud music.

For the next eight and a half months, you're going to be mine. Every. Night.

Many kinds of fruit grow upon the tree of life, but none so sweet as friendship; as with the orange tree its blossoms and fruit appear at the same time, full of refreshment for sense and for soul.

Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance on every side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal relation and power which the work evinced in the artist.