Never use 'submit' as a verb for sending work to magazine or book publishers; say 'offer,' and never, ever submit. Keep your knees unbent. Be brave.

I can't imagine having the courage to ask a publisher to do a whole book of my poems.

If there is some blood on the pages then you have some readership.

I have a wonderful editor who believes in fiction and poetry. She herself is a novelist and poet.

The importance to the world of what we scribblers write is in doubt, I would think.

The people who make reality are angry peasants with old cannon shells wired together, an anti-vehicle device.

What to know about pain is how little we do to deserve it, how simple it is to give, how hard to lose.