The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.

We Americans are trained to think big, talk big, act big, love big, admire bigness but then the essential mystery is in the small.

Michigan is two radically different places - the North and the South which makes for good drama and contrast.

I wonder, when a writer's blocked and doesn't have any resources to pull himself out of it, why doesn't he jump in his car and drive around the U.S.A.? I went last winter for seven thousand miles and it was lovely. Inexpensive, too.

New Yorkers are mostly interested in New York - in case you haven't noticed.

The fact is, the media never gets off the interstate unless there's a major explosion.

A poet must discover that it’s his own story that is true, even if the truth is small indeed.