Mediocre prose might be read as an escape, might be spoken on television by actors, or mouthed in movies. But mediocre poetry did not exist at all. If poetry wasn't good, it wasn't poetry. It was that simple.

My generation had Doris Day as a role model, then Gloria Steinem--then Princess Diana. We are the most confused generation.

Eating is never so simple as hunger.

To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives.

is there not an Arabick Proverb which goes, 'No one throws Stones at a Barren Tree'?

All people believe their suffering is greater than others.

Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.