Poems are other people's snapshots in which we see our own lives.

When you play chess alone it's always your move.

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.

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

I do believe that a poem needs to remind the reader of his or her own humanity, of what they are, of what they're capable of. Awaken them, in a sense, to the fact that there's a world in front of their eyes, that they have a body, they're going to die, the sky is beautiful, it's fun to be in a grassy field when the sun is shining—those kinds of things.

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

Here is something we can all count on. Sooner or later our tribe always comes to ask us to agree to murder.