Anybody can get worked up, if they have the intention. It's peacefulness that is hard to come by on purpose.

The substance of grief is not imaginary. It's as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things, it can kill.

What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.

I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day.

You know reviewers, they are the wind in their own sails.

Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.

When you're given a brilliant child you polish her and let her shine. Pigs in Heaven