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.

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.

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.

Writers want recognition, audience, some corroboration that all those hours at the desk and in daydreams add up to something in the esteem of others.

In business, ruthlessness is righteousness.Seldom are there those, whom are ruthlessly righteous.Listen to these people, before the Earth repents of mankind.

Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French.

Jem spoke with enormous care; talking to Will about anything personal was like trying not to startle away a wild animal.

Don't reject a shoe because you can't run in it. It's OK not to run.

Most people think of success in terms of getting; success, however, begins in terms of giving.

You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.

All you got in life is your honor, man, your own self-image, your own self-respect. If you lose that, or if you give it away or if you sell it, then you ain't got it no more.

The older you get, the more you learn.

Forget about the business outlook... be on the outlook for business.

They've offered me every variation on Audrey Horne, none of which were as good or as much fun.