I was never a joiner. I tried - I had people I admired and liked and wanted to hang with, but I ended up starting a theatre company and that took me back to Chicago... I guess I wasn't a scenester in the end. Something must have worked out right, as I'm still here - but I'm only a binge socialite.

We've got to force the Democrats to get a spine. If they don't want to have a spine, we should throw them out. If they don't want to stand up for the rule of law, then I'm not a Democrat.

Don't buy into the corporate mythology that's been rammed down our throats for all these years.

These guys who talk about free markets, they're not ideologues; they're crooks.

I remember the '80s being about the Cold War and Reagan and the homeless problem and AIDS. To me, it was kind of a dark, depressing time.

I've seen the people who talk about their love lives in print invariably have doomed relationships with the person they're talking about.

Poets are political, they have to be reflections of their times [because] they're living in their times... Poetry is political in that it's standing in opposition to fascism. Good poetry asks a bunch of questions and asks the audience to interact with themselves or see themselves in it; maybe you like it or you don't like it. But the fascist sort of stuff plays on your fears and tells you to jump on the party line and gives some simple excuses - blame this person.