You don't think of yourself as your external representation, or even your national origin or anything like that. You don't reduce yourself to that. That's kind of unthinkable.

I was always a reader. In the fifth grade, I got some sort of prize for having read hundreds of books from the library.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.

Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude.

I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the instability of the poetry, the emotional jaggedness, is also me.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.

I think that when you reveal things that are going to cause pain, you have rhetorical resources in poetry.

We all think of ourselves as our subjectivity, our consciousness.

It's important for all writers to try to figure out what they're doing.

If not love, then what? If not now, then when?

A belief in reincarnation would at least give us some slack

About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard.

You do not have to imagine things; reality gives you all you need.

Don't make me regret this", I said breathless. "You haven't regretted me once.

I don't want to sell other people trips! I want to be there!

I don't want to hear any drama [about me]. I don't want any negativity. I don't want to hear what's on the blog. I don't care what others say about me.

That should be regarded as a loss, which is won at the expense of our reputation.

I was a teenage godmother.

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.