How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?

People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

Flying fosters fantasies of childhood, of omnipotence, rapid shifts of being, miraculous moments; it stirs our capacity for dreaming.

My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.

Writing is the most solitary of arts.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.