In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

To submit to chance is to reveal the self and its obsessions.

I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck

When people ask me how to find happiness in life I tell them, First learn how to cook.

Only poetry can measure the distance between ourselves and the Other.

Making art in America is about saving one's soul.

The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.