Quite a while ago, I made a conscious choice to place my teaching first, so it was very ego-invested. That decision wasn't a good thing in some ways.

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

Never regret anything that made you smile.

The first gathering of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby - how could anything so beautiful be mine?

When you produce and direct your own film you havethe somewhat consoling feeling that the producer will kill for you.

Al Michaels is a good announcer. I think Keith Jackson is a terrific announcer. I always loved him on Monday Night Football. I never understood why they got rid of him

But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.

I know that sounds contradictory - you're going on a journey, but once you know who your characters are, you become more disciplined and you film less and less.

We are young, beautiful scum pissed off with the world.

My cousin just got married for the totally wrong reasons. She married a man for money. She wasn't real subtle about it. Instead of calling him her fiancé, she kept calling him her financee.

Developing your own style became something very interesting, very important to me.

I would be hard-pressed to look back at anything that I have done in my career and not say, "I would have done that a little different" because hindsight is 20/20.