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.

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.

If you have no passion, you better do something different.

I've never really understood why people sleep. Wasting a third of your life and becoming vulnerable for almost 8 hours every night. Doesn't seem very appealing to me.

To feel sorry for oneself is one of the most disintegrating things the individual can do to himself.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

Everyone has their own definition of a healthy lifestyle, and mine has come to mean making health a priority but not an obsession.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

I sing the Star Spangled Banner, so I can get into football, basketball and baseball games for free.

Never try to negotiate with anyone after he or she has eaten. People are best persuaded on an empty stomach. And forget power breakfasts. There is no convincing anyone of anything before 10 A.M.

People love talking about when they were young and heard Honky Tonk Women for the first time. It's quite a heavy load to carry on your shoulders, the memories of so many people.

Good directors can bring certain things out of you, with their intensity or gentleness or sensitivity or understanding. They can make an actor feel he can do no wrong.