Art is fueled by rebellion: the need, in some amounting to obsessions, to resist what is, to defy one's elders, even to the point of ostracism; to define oneself, and by extension one's generation, as new, novel, ungovernable.

I don't know what marriages are like in general, but there are many things which I don't talk about with my husband. We discuss practical problems, but I wouldn't sit down with him and talk about the distant past. It's somewhat in contrast to other Americans, who feel that they have to confess things, but I'm really not like that.

Sometimes I stumble upon a wonderfully irresistible to me voice, unexpectedly.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

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

The regional voice is the universal voice.

Nothing comes of so many things, if you have patience.