I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.

A lot of times, when people send me books to read - new writers mostly - I find that the book is still in a draft stage and that before it can leave the writer's hands and head to a publisher, it needs about five more revisions. Some people don't want to do that.

You can't always be pushing people away. Someday nobody'll come back.

Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.

Sometimes it seems as though not a moment has moved, but then you look up and you're already old or you already have a household of kids or you look down and see your feet are miles and miles away from the rest of you—and you realize you've grown up.

I couldnt be a writer without hope. I think I became a writer because Im pretty optimistic.

Don't trust women, my mother said to me. Even the ugly ones will take what you thought was yours.