Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the voice, there's no visual distraction.

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

A motto I've adopted is, if at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried.

The mind can be trained to relieve itself on paper.

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

Nationalism is a type of insanity in which the boundaries of a land replace God.

In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.

Write the poem only you can write.

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.

But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest.

While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the windowpane.

Eyes as black and as shiny as chips of obsidian stared back into his. They were eyes like black holes, letting nothing out, not even information.

The Only Good Greed Is Greed For Enlightening Experiences

That's what I love from metal, and that's what I love from hip-hop. That's what I love from any music that's hard, that's got an edge to it-The attitude in it.

God gave you a gift of 86, 400 seconds today. Have you used one to say 'thank you?'

You have to know what you want to get it.

I am still full of ambition.

Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all.

It's nice to collect stamps, but if it becomes obsessive, and you start stealing for your stamps, it becomes too much.

Sadness isn't sadness. It's happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They're balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It's life that's jumped off a tall cliff.

We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?