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

The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. …The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe.

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.

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

Silence is the only language god speaks.

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.