I reserve the right to tell shaggy dog stories or even common jokes as part of what I'm doing. I don't give a damn if half the audience walks out.

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.

I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.

I have spoken to expert audiences occasionally, but then no audience is expert over the whole range of things I want to explore.

I had no idea where these kids at a small private college in the San Fernando Valley were coming from, why they were coming to hear me, or what they needed to know.

When my mother left her second husband, she wrote her autobiography and presented it to him for his approval.