Heartbreak is how we mature... There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak.

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.

A good poem looks life straight in the face, unflinching, sincere, equal to revelation through loss or gain.

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.

Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every moment, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility itself. A life’s work is not a series of stepping-stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, which, of itself, is in conversation with the elements.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.