Confession may well be a dirty word in poetry.

I wanted many of the poems to have long legs. At first I was calling them clothespin poems, before I knew what I was doing. The lines seem pulled on either end, tight and taut against the wind.

Poetry is the skin that I have between my body and the world's body.

I want a poem which is made of compression, passion, precision, symmetry, & disruption.

That's what interests me in poetry. That withholding, that white space, the pressure, and my long-term faith in violent concision, is still with me.

I am fascinated with criminal law because it is as rigorous as a poem and because it is based on what has been written down even before one has committed a crime.

I came to poetry because I felt I couldn't live properly in the real world.

At the heart of my life is the idea that I don't ever want anything to ever change. That's the basic tenet.

Every thing is changing every minute.

A desire and a goal not to be subservient to another or to be in charge of one’s life is a good thing to do.

one is good but ten is better. together is a powerful, beautiful, and peaceful.

When you start thinking from other’s point of view, you will understand him more easily and more completely.

Being kidnapped and abused by the undead was worse than calculus, but not by a wide margin.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

If you are afraid of dying then you are afraid of living.

What was said about all of us? We're stupid. You'll never work in a town again. How do you look your four children in the eye? You've sold your soul. You know, it went on and on.

Anything is possible. I've got a few more miles in me. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself.

Home-made bread rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with olive oil, shared-with a flask of wine-between working people, can be more convivial than any feast.

The mind is hopeful; success is in God's hands. [Lat., Sperat quidem animus: quo eveniat, diis in manu est.]