“Before Elijah could raise a nation from the dead, he raised just one dead child.”

“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.”

“Danger is a chain...passed from one wounded child to the next. We must stop the danger by breaking the chain. We must learn how to stay safe and be kind.”

“They are closing the mine in two weeks, they say. Six days a week bumping down in the gondola, pecking out the rocks and hauling them back up, doing it again the next day for twenty-seven years, one cave-in, three thin raises, and a failed strike. Where am I going to go every day, what am I going to do with all that sunshine?”

“He just raised the dead with coke and cheeseburgers”

“That is how I think of peace and peace of mind—as timid birds that we have to search for, not bold ones that come looking for us.”

“Things always seem to end before they start”