I have a lifelong devotion to public service.

Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth. Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility.

I'm not as shy as everybody makes me out to be.

The biggest problem is people are afraid of poetry, think they can't understand it or that it will be boring.

I can see both sides of term limits, and I think, in different positions, term limits make more sense than in some others.

We need a President who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again - and that President is Al Gore.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died, and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion, but in fact, what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.