I believe that there's a force of life in the universe, and that when we're writing or making music or painting, we're likely to connect with that flow.

Anybody who instantly goes from being a poet and a graduate student to being a public figure has to be in a state of shock. First people want to praise you, and then they want to attack you. No one can prepare you for it.

I don't necessarily read everything. I read what I need to read to inspire the book I'm trying to finish.

The camera creates a magical transformation. It's not enough to exist; we must chronicle that existence. ... Narrative- and image-making creatures like humans don't feel any experience is complete unless it's recorded.

It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone.

I thought of the nameless inventor of the bathtub. I was somehow sure it was a woman. And was the inventor of the bathtub plug a man?

Spring, / you are a pinking shears: you cut / fresh edges on the world.