At least I've had to come to that in my life, to realize that this stuff called failure, this stuff, this debris of historical trauma, family trauma, you know, stuff that can kill your spirit, is actually raw material to make things with and to build a bridge. You can use those materials to build a bridge over that which would destroy you.

I was born with eyes that can never close.

The saxophone is so human. Its tendency is to be rowdy, edgy, talk too loud, bump into people, say the wrong words at the wrong time, but then, you take a breath all the way from the center of the earth and blow. All that heartache is forgiven. All that love we humans carry makes a sweet, deep sound and we fly a little.

I believe that poets have to be inside their poems somewhere, or the poem won't work.

There is no poetry where there are no mistakes.

I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies

Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.