suicide is absolute, and if you think you will survive by hiding who you really are, you are sadly misled: there is no such thing as partial or intermittent suicide. You can only survive if you - who you really are - do survive.

My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant.

I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

What's important about poetry in the context of leadership is that most of the time, power has to do with dominance. But poetry is never about dominance. Poetry is powerful but it cannot even aspire to dominate anyone. It means making a connection. That's what it means.

The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet

There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.

In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way.