I think the idea of the lone tormented artist - which we can apply to others - I think that it needs to be revisited. Jack Kerouac needs to be seen in the context of a lot of other artistic activity.

It was a little harder when I first went to Egypt when I was 18 years old and being a white woman with a knapsack and in blue jeans. But again I was part of the rucksack revolution there was some grace there. You could put it that way. And confidence as well because I thought of myself as a poet. That was part of it. I was going for that, to have experiences to make the work.

The whole red state/blue state thing is very interesting. Watching that shift over the years.

Poets have to keep pushing, pushing, against the darkness, and write their way out of it as well.

The sense of traveling this continent, also other continents. The friendship.I would say a non-competitive friendship. That is so amazing to me.

My mother started taking us to church when I was in seventh or eight grade. That was always a question, Do you believe in God?

Think of the road as a kind of zone and a site of incredible diversity.