To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

I write for the still, small possibility of justice.

I read a lot. I liked a tremendous number of poets and writers. The person whose work I liked the most was Joyce.

When you think of things that influenced your life, Mother Goose influenced more people than almost any other thing, the rhythms of those poems. Everything after that was a bare imitation of some of those mysterious and materialistic poems.

I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices.

Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven't. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven't learned how to write the next one.

Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write.