Writing essays and teaching composition have helped me immensely in writing poetry, because they've forced me to focus on the structure of ideas.

Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn't saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

Whenever I do a comedy show I still just read poems, some of which are intentionally funny and some of which are just bizarre. The mix seems to work well.

After the first few readings in comedy venues I did begin to write for laughs. There's something so gratifying about stimulating laughter.

I don't really want to write fiction at all. I don't see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.

Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?

Poetry is a way for me to explore a tingly feeling, to let it play itself out, and also to map it. I feel like I'm making little star maps when I write poems.

The brands with which we surround ourselves prop us up, make us feel sexy and beautiful, when in reality we're pretty dumpy creatures.

Creativity is admired only if it solves the problem.

Business is about profit, yes – and it is about more than profit: at its best, it is about expanding the possibilities of humanity.

Gabriel.This has to be his fault, somehow. I'm going to track him down, pluck out his angel feathers, and stuff a pillow with them.

Friendship increases in visiting friends but not in visiting them too often.

The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life.

Seek not to know what must not be reveal, for joy only flows where fate is most concealed. A busy person would find their sorrows much more; if future fortunes were known before!

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.

Then again maybe there's something that I've been doing in the privacy of my own bedroom my whole life that I think is perfectly normal but is actually illegal in thirty-two states.

The real work is in the Heart: Wake up your Heart! Because when the heart is completely awake, Then it needs no Friend.

An imaginative adventure does not enjoy the same corsets as reportage.