We sabotage our creative possibilities because the world revealed by our imagination may not fit well with the life we have taken so much trouble to construct over the years. Faced with the pain of that distance, the distance between desire and reality, we turn just for a moment and quickly busy ourselves.

It might be liberating to think of human life as informed by losses and disappearances as much as by gifted appearances, allowing a more present participation and witness to the difficulty of living.

If in your mind it was possible to take a year's sabbatical from work to reassess your life, what would you do and where would you go?

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds Except the one in which you belong.

Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat.

Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.