I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for a while, " he grunted, "It relaxes me.""It does? Oh - you're being sarcastic. That's a good sign probably.

It is common to seek perfection, but it is stupid to believe that you will ever reach it.

Most males do not mature, they simply grow taller.

I'd have to say my favorite thing about working on the show, and something that might be intriguing to other people, is that it's just such an amazingly welcoming environment to work in.

Gaining time is gaining everything in love, trade and war.

Only Christianity and its teachings can explain the purpose and meaning of this world- and also gives the basis for right and wrong, good and evil, etc.

He who has most of heart knows most of sorrow.

You've always got to be smart enough to go 'Well they're going to have to bring some of their own in'. We don't want to be a monopoly where we get shoved out, it has to be symbiotic.

Costumes are fun. Dress up like a pilot some night and watch as people stare!

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quack like a duck, then it just may be a duck.