“It is difficultto get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lackof what is found there.”

“That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? ”

“Consider this: Every day in America more people get their evening news from Entertainment Tonight, an insipid syndicated television show covering celebrity news, than from CBS, NBC, and ABC combined.”

“Every woman is a living poem...Most men are limericks!”

“Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.”

“In my life I've had good days and bad days. Miserable days. Painful days. And no matter how bad the bad ones get, there's a mercy in them. Every single one of them ends.”