sometimes there's nothing to say about death.

Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese.

I am aware that a computer can’t create a poem, but neither can a typewriter.

Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.

there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock

Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.

For each Joan of Arc there is a Hitler perched at the other end of the teeter-totter.