“The moment of change is the only poem.”

“Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don't know you know.”

“Nothing can be done but by inches. I write out my life hour by hour, word by word . . . imagining the existence of something uncreated this poem our lives.”

“What we see, we see and seeing is changing”

“We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us kinship where all is represented as separation."(Defy the Space That Separates, The Nation, October 7, 1996)”

“If I cling to circumstances I could feelnot responsible. Only she who saysshe did not choose, is the loser in the end.”

“Only to have a griefequal to all these tears!There's not a sob in my chest.Dry hearted Peer GyntI pare away, no hero,merely a cook.”