We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us.

As you continue writing and rewriting, you begin to see possibilities you hadn't seen before. Writing a poem is always a process of discovery.

Art is not escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.

I believe it's true that one person can make a difference. But how much more difference 100 people make, or rather 99.

This freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth.

[My poetry is] a way of coming to grips with reality . . . a way of discovery and definition. It is a way of solving for the unknowns.

As well have a talon as a finger, a muzzle as a mouth, as well have a hollow as a heart.

Your presence was shore where I rested/ released from the hoodoo of that dance, where I spoke/ with my true voice again.

Harriet Tubman, woman of earth, whipscarred, a summoning, a shinning

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fire blazes. No one ever thanked him.

It seemed to me as we were talking about Christ rising from the dead, the sun popped over the mountain. That was indicative of Christ rising - a new day. It just makes sense.

I have very little patience with children.

The wicked flee when none pursueth.

I demand more from myself than anybody could ever expect.

A lot of people believe in reading reviews. If I get too focused on some detail of what they've said about me, I'm going to end up shooting myself in the foot.

What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished.

There is a whole school of Canadian academics, media personalities, and politicians whose definition of a Canadian is a North American who fears or dislikes the United States.

Oh, come forth into the storm and rout And be my love in the rain.

The older we get the less afraid we are.

There's one argument that says we shouldn't be putting these kids on under the age of 16. I think you've got to take it case by case.

I grow numb; I grow stiff. How shall I break up this numbness which discredits my sympathetic heart?