What I like about teaching is the discipline of finding words to unpack the artistic process. And I admire the drive in students who want to write, the mystery of how artistic talent unfolds.

I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.

It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost.

Once you realize that human actions affect every bit of earth and sky, you realize that the environment isn't just what surrounds us - it's all one whole.

I am a result of what has happened on this planet - how could I find the art to say that? I can't, and yet, I am drawn to it because of the enormity of it. That seems really important.

Bringing science into poetry is one way of acknowledging some of the richest stuff that is in my cultural moment.

I've been accused of darkness by my inner light.

I don't know much about death and the sorriest lesson I've learned is that words, my most trusted guardians against chaos, offer small comfort in the face of anyone's dying.

What keeps me level is the refusal to let the best of human aspirations die in the face of the challenges. I make a moral decision to be hopeful.

We're nature. Our minds are nature. Our desire to make poetry is nature.

As writers, the world is not about individual expression entirely because we are producing works of literature and getting them out into the world.

A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmareto the jeweled vision of a life started anew.

Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...

Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.

But music is reflection of self, we just explain it, and then we get our checks in the mail.

To hell with luck. I'll bring the luck with me.

As democracy modifies our conception of life, it constantly raises the value and function of each member of the community, however humble he may be.

Television, in particular, doesn't look for talent; it looks for personas. You have a great persona? You can be a TV star.

Someone once defined hard work as the accumulation of the easy things you didn't do when you should have.

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

I very rarely watch my own fashion shows, but the makeup for my Fall 2011 show was just brilliant.