The poem is not only the point of origin for all the language and narrative arts, the poem returns us to the very social function of art as such.

Here, for a moment, we are joined.

BEFORE THERE WAS BILLY COLLINS & TED KOOSER, THERE WAS EDGAR GUEST

how does this outer life, apocalypse reported, penetrate my dreams

art is a mode of stalking

The day the Dragon chooses a male virgin instead of a female as his yearly sacrifice, the entire kingdom erupts into mass protests and anger.

Joy turns tears into laughter.Hope turns mourning into gladness.Wisdom turns tragedy into fortune.Faith turns defeat into triumph.Love turns enmity into friendship.

I like to find what's not found at once, but lies within something of another nature, in repose, distinct.

I had rather be called a journalist than an artist.

No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years.

I don't consider genre while writing.

When you try to convince yourself that something doesn't bother you, it usually bothers you more.

What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing.

Nature loves you ten times more than a mother loves her newborn.

When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.