“Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.”

“I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the markWhen he made Pearl Harbor. I miss you more than that movie missed the pointAnd that's an awful lot, girl. And now, now you've gone awayAnd all I'm trying to say, is: Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you.I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting schoolHe was terrible in that film. I need you like Cuba Gooding needed a bigger partHe's way better than Ben Affleck. And now, all I can think about is your smileand that shitty movie, too. Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you. Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies? I guess Pearl Harbor suckedjust a little bit more than I miss you.”

“But the next time Nikki eats too many crabby snacks, I am going to tell her she did not eat too much and that she looks too skinny anyway; I'll say she needs to gain a few pounds because I like my women looking like women and not like 'Ms. Six O'Clock-straight up, straight down,' which is another term I learned from Danny.”

“I don't know anything that mars a good literature so completely as too much truth. Facts contain a great deal of poetry, but you can't use too many of them without damaging your literature.”

“I can't believe how many students don't read. They want to be writers, but they haven't read anything at all. They have looked at book covers, which usually allows them enough expertise to sneer, but they haven't read the books. How many young poets "don't like" poetry? How many fiction writers don't know Lehane from Nevada Barr?”

“I don't know why boys expect us to like boy movies. We don't expect them to like girl movies.”