Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

I think one of the reasons why people tend to fake an entire relationship is maybe they are just afraid of being alone or are lonely right now!

It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes - and each of these will have its own complement of planets.

I do like to keep mementos from my work, whether they be photos, the backs of make-up chairs or even props and clothes.

It is funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

Human beings affix themselves to things that are of little or no importance. They affix themselves to the transitory, to things that are impermanent, and in doing so, they get all upset

Nobody gets something for nothing.

Hunter S. Thompson brings a lunatic genius to ordinary events, and I bring an ordinary sensibility to lunatic events.

It is much more intelligent, more practical, to be good rather than evil.

A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.