This condition [irony] has nothing to do with writer's block, a psychological syndrome, which is one of the few I have not diagnosed for myself!

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

Learn not from imitating but from emulating.

Whether we get to avoid pain and suffering or we must persevere in the midst of it, our deliverance comes when we're dragged from the enemy of our souls to the heart of God.

Artists tend to be beyond embarrassment the way little children tend to be beyond embarrassment.

I've never felt scared of flight, ever. It's really weird. I don't know. They stick a gin and tonic in your hands and I just think, "Life is good!"

I've never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso.

Heresie is the school of pride.

It's what I'd like from my life - to live and learn, be wise and to go on without bitterness.

You never know when you start a project just how good it can be.

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

This perfection must come through the practice of holiness and love.