I think my way of being "funny" is just saying things that people think but have learned not to say, whereas, I haven't learned not to say them.

Most people are trying to go digital, and trying to do different things with poetry. McSweeney's is going in the opposite direction - going more classic, and retro, which is all coming back.

I was sort of obsessed about corporate people committing suicide.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and other mornings I feel like crap.

I can't help but go against the grain, I suppose it is in my fabric to be a rule-breaker.

I am always reading, always, and tons of things at once. I wouldn't say I'm a voracious reader, though. I never finish books that fast, because I'm always reading so many things at once.

There's an attraction to emotional clusters or hypocrisies or awkwardness. A desire to expose something or point at something that's already poking out.

I feel like I give myself all day long to other people and other things, and I still seem like I have something to write once in awhile. Not often, though.

I think I've always felt very isolated, and I'm sure lots of poets do.

I think e-mail and social media and all that has made me feel way less isolated than ever before.

It took me awhile to not be ashamed to be a poet in the business environment, and to be a business person in the poet environment.

When your sad--like really sad--you only want to be with other people who are sad.

When you face tests and persecution don’t complain, but remember that everything works together for good for those who love God

Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories.

character isn’t something you talk about

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

That was the overwhelming thing to me, the joy of carrying my portable typewriter to an event and trying to describe it.

....remember, a billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be.

Heart is what makes a difference

Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing!

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.