I write to be recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self - all of those different aspects of it.

I think that the people who really accomplish things in this world have to have a little bit of crazy in them.

I like when a poem ends on its "receipts," meaning it gives me something tactile or tangible to dwell on as I exit the reading experience. So I strive to end my own poems that way as well.

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

Poetry is such an ancient art, and I consider myself young within that art.

I write a lot, and then forget what I've written, and then come back to it and say, "Not bad, I should do something with this!"

Only after my father's death could I speak my own individual truths about him. In a sense, I had to turn him into a character, a figure I could control through language.

Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.

I lived a life I knew I had to hide My father's edicts resolutely grim.

Editing is work, and it's hard to do while working on one's own writing.

Prejudice is an act of violence.

If you have a deep desire to move forward, a way is being prepared for you.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

The headgear thing's great. It's like a headband, so it's not heavy or anything like that at all. I was able to do everything fine.

Socialism cannot function, because its economic reward structure is contrary to human nature.

I look back at my career when I was younger and can connect what I was going through at the time with the characters I was playing. I see the similarities in them reflecting on my life.

My potential is what God gives me - that's His gift to me - what I give back to Him is what I do with that potential.

Human being's essential nature is perfect and faultless.

The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.

Baseball isn't a business; it's more like a disease.