There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit. As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees.

We live in a capitalist system; anyone who believes they are above this system or purer than this system, even while shopping at the cute organic market across the street or taking a hiking vacation to Guatemala, is certifiable.

It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book.

To think of the myriad ways that we live is to think of the ways that we die: Delinquent in our brains, in debt-- If we settle, then, our due account and walk through the forest, Will we finally be free?

I remember when I was writing my memoir and I was worried about what other people would think when they read it, and my mother, who can be this incredibly wise person, said that it really didn't matter because strangers who read it would never meet me anyway, and people I knew were aware of my secrets.

It is bizarre that some people can't understand how a serious poet could work at a finance firm. Goethe was a bureaucrat. Eliot worked as a banker.

Poetry is God's work.