if you unquestioningly accept one piece of the culture that despises and fears you, you are vulnerable to other pieces.

In a world where language and naming are power, silence is oppression, is violence.

Poetry is, among other things, a criticism of language.

But it is the subjects, the conversations, the facts we shy away from, which claim us in the form of writer's block, as mere rhetoric, as hysteria, insomnia, and constriction of the throat.

Tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers.

No More Avengers! There's nothing new to get out of it - I want to go forward, not backward.

I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There's no shame in being tested for AIDS.

When you reach for a star, only angels are there. And it's not very far, just a step on a stair.

I was told all my life I was part Cherokee. Then it was Crow. The latest is Blackfoot.

Life is a relationship among molecules and not a property of any molecule.

I never quite envisioned myself a proper doctor under that white coat, but I was interested in the idea of healing and in the psychological dimension rather early on.

You get the right collection of people together and you get the atmosphere together that it is very free where there is no judgment. If you create an atmosphere that is very open you steer the ship.

I think the music business is changing. Artists that don't want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.

I put priority on such artists who focus on the world of "oblivion" and who consider placing themselves into the world of "oblivion" as fundamental to their attitude for their expression.