She was privileged enough to feel at home anywhere, and to equate squalor with authenticity.

There is such a shelter in each other.

Cargo cults fascinate me partly because Christianity itself is in many ways a cargo cult.

I don't think there's any law where you have to read a poem and immediately understand it.

Nabokov quote: "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

The reason that the book exists is because there was a gap in you. You wrote the book to fulfill that gap in some way.

A huge portion of Trump voters are incredibly pleased with how he's performing. They see what they want to see.

In fact, lots of good poetry doesn't work , so I don't mind a bit of mystification or difficulty.

Writing a poem is a more personal experience, I think, than writing prose. And perhaps reading a poem is a more personal experience than reading prose, though that's harder to say.

That's what Samuel Johnson said: "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think particularly fine, strike it out."

When you're rereading or editing your book and you start to expect that this work is going to be reviewed, and you can sort of tell which line is going to show up in reviews.

New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don't know what the hell the rest of the United States is.

Publicity is like eating peanuts. Once you start you can’t stop.

There are no honest poems about dead women.

Every episode of 'True Blood' is like shooting a low budget feature.

I'm always surprised when I read a story that's reported from a great distance.

Nancy Pelosi said that when it comes to cleaning up government, the Democrats have drained the swamp. The only problem with that is what's left after you drain the swamp: snakes everywhere.

To use is necessary. And if you can't be used, then you're useless.

Today it was win or lose. But my victory yesterday and the downhill globe boosted my confidence. My record in Cortina was also a liberation.

Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel stops turning.

Be Sure you Are Stepping to the Music you Hear - No Matter what Other People Think.