If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask. If you want a different kind of love I'll wear a mask. If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand. If you want a partner in life take my hand. I'm your man.

To have [Adam's Cohen] microscopic attention to my work was really a great privilege.

I see people allowing their lives to diminish, to become shallow, so they can't enjoy the deep wells of experience. Maybe it's always been this way, when the heart tends to shut down. If only the heart shut down and there were no repercussions, it would be O.K., but when the heart shuts down, the whole system goes into a kind of despair that is intolerable.

Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.

I alwaysthought of myself as a competent, minor poet. I know who I'm up against.

Maybe there's a God above, As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight, It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah.

The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.