Poetry is what I've done my whole life. And every important thing in my life had found itself into poems.

Today when I begin writing I’m aware: something that I don’t understand drives this engine.

The greatest kindness would put a bullet in his bright eye.

Opposites are attracted when each one is anxious about its own character.

The pleasure we feel, reading a poem, is our assurance of its integrity.

I want to sleep like the birds then wake to write you again without hope that you read me.

Virtually every beginning poet hurts himself by an addiction to adjectives. Verbs are by far the most important things for poems-especially wonderful tough monosyllables like "gasp" and "cry." Nouns are the next most important. Adjectives tend to be useless.