We've always had a tradition in America of hounding our artists to death. Look at the list of our great artists, you see a continual history of defeat, frustration, poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction. The best poets of my generation are all suicides.

I once had the nerve to ask Picasso the question, 'What is art?' He answered, 'Art is a lie which makes us see the truth.

To say that its wrong to feel this way is not the point; you do feel it. All you see is a flash of fire and, depending on your altitude, you don't even see that sometimes.

Find out what you do best, and then don't do it.

Poetry is a hazardous occupation, very hazardous. There may be bad things in there inside you that maybe you can't handle.

William Packard surely must be one of the great editors of our time.

I want a fever, in poetry: a fever, and tranquillity.