You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.'

Although I grew up in Kansas City, ... I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then.

I've written three books you could think of as memoirs.

I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes immediately to mind -- but it's difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is completely shot.

I don't think I've ever read a food piece or a food book.

As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.

It has long been acknowledged that the single best restaurant in the world is Arthur Bryant's Barbecue at Eighteenth and Booklyn in Kansas city.