Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

I was always a reader. In the fifth grade, I got some sort of prize for having read hundreds of books from the library.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.

You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude.

I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the instability of the poetry, the emotional jaggedness, is also me.

You don't think of yourself as your external representation, or even your national origin or anything like that. You don't reduce yourself to that. That's kind of unthinkable.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.

I think that when you reveal things that are going to cause pain, you have rhetorical resources in poetry.

We all think of ourselves as our subjectivity, our consciousness.

It's important for all writers to try to figure out what they're doing.

As only dead leaves allow the wind to blow them to and fro, never allow yourself to be swayed by popular opinion.

Kindness is an act to transform lives.

Procrastination is opportunity's assassin.

A lot of beautiful people are stupid. There are a tremendous number of idiots who look so good. It's frightening.

People tend to believe the bad rather than the good.

You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.

Passion and love for a brand and its consumers sustain us. For how can we ever devote our continued highest energy to something if we don't believe in it passionately.

I cannot be what I am not.

Two may keep counsel putting one away!