Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.

When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.

Honk if you love Jesus, text while driving if you want to meet up.

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.

Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery store shelves with 30 brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and think, "What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?" I think it's fear. Codi, I hope you won't be hurt by this, but I don't think I'll ever be going back. I don't think I can.

A writer's occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic.