“We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffering, not because of it.”

“Every good poem asks a question, and every good poet asks every question.”

“You are not your poetry. Your self-esteem shouldn't depend on whether you publish, or whether some editor or writer you admire thinks you're any good.”

“A poem is like a child; at some point we have to let it go and trust that it will make its own way in the world.”

“Maybe it's what we don't say/that saves us.”

“Death comes to me again, a girlin a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.It’s not so terrible she tells me,not like you think, all darknessand silence. There are windchimesand the smell of lemons, some daysit rains, but more often the air is dryand sweet. I sit beneath the staircasebuilt from hair and bone and listento the voices of the living. I like it,she says, shaking the dust from her hair,especially when they fight, and when they sing.”

“Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.”