The details of the world in which we live are always secondary to the fact that we must live in them.

In a lot of ways, the task at hand for any poem is to approach something that defies exactness or definition with a kind of exactness or precision.

Freedom is not the same as lack of accountability.

One of the things my service in Iraq did give me was this freedom from fear of failure or any kind of expectations that I had to take a standard path.

It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

I had the feeling that if I encountered anyone they would intuit my disgrace and would judge me instantly. Nothing is more isolating than having a particular history. At least that's what I thought. Now I know: all pain is the same. Only the details are different.