“If poetry is a circus, then the Big Tent we're under has to have room for a lot of different freak shows.”

“We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks-that's show business.”

“So many FREAKS and not enough CIRCUSES!”

“I have no complaints about my path and the places it has taken me; enough complaints to fill a circus tent about other things, maybe, but the path I've chosen has always been the right one, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.”

“.....there's a stinking huge difference between influence and the authority you get with a title. Any dolt can stumble into a title.....Lots of people with big-sounding titles have people under them listening only because they have to.”

“His lap looked like it was already occupied--by a giant boner. It pressed against his pants like a circus tent pole. Elephants could fit under there. A lion tamer and some flying trapeze artists. A dancing bear, or five.”