Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief turning downward through it s black water to the place we cannot breathe will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else.

To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time - is one of the great triumphs of human existence.

When I recite poems onstage, I put myself into the very personal struggle and it grants tremendous perspective. At the same time you get another perspective on the poem you're reciting.

As human beings we have this immediate gateway - you’ve just to articulate exactly the way that you’re exiled, exactly the way that you don’t belong, exactly the way that you can’t love, exactly the way that you can’t move ... and you’re on your way again. You’re on your way home. If you can just say exactly the way that you’re imprisoned - the door swings open.

Poetry is a break for freedom.

Genius is becoming something you were all along.