The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.

When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.

Here's the secret of writing: there is no secret.

Use your notebook to breathe in the world around you.

Good writing happens when human beings follow particular steps to take control of their sentences-to make their words do what they want them to do.

Writing becomes beautiful when it becomes specific, concrete.

Poems are the 'daredevil' of writing because a poem will say what nobody else wants to say.

Springtimeand I wish I knew you

That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. (Enobarbus)

You will fall short of achieving your goals if your focus is fragmented and your attention, energy, and concentration diversified.

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

I think the United States is way behind the times.

But if we are to be told by a foreign Power . . . what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.

I'm a one-man kind of girl, and I only want a man who's a one-woman man.

I'm friggin' awesome! So screw the haters!

It's always cool on the airplane when people are watching “SVU.” It’s funny. And it’s always the reruns.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.