“Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.”

“Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself”

“One truly must have suffered oneself to help others.”

“We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That's what connects us--that we're all broken, all beautifully imperfect.”

“I do think that all of us think in poems. I think of a poem as being deeper than headline news. You know how they talk about breaking news all the time, that -- if too much breaking news, trying to absorb all the breaking news, you start feeling really broken. And you need something that takes you to a place that's a little more timeless, that kind of gives you a place to stand to look out at all these things. Otherwise, you just feel assaulted by all of the tragedy in the world.”

“All writers must go from now to once upon a time; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.”