I've never thought of myself as a singer anyway. . . I've been free from those considerations because so many people over the years told me I don't have a voice. I kind of bought that. I never thought that much about it to begin with. I knew I didn't have one of the great voices. As my Damon Runyanesque lawyer used to say, "none of you guys can sing. If I want to hear singing, I'll go to the Metropolitan Opera."

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

I don't have a television set up [in the mountains], of course, but I find I don't miss it at all, or the newspaper. I've sneaked a radio into by cabin, but I find I turn it on very rarely.

A heavy burden lifted from my soul, I heard that love was out of my control.

Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity.

I've always held the song in high regard because songs have got me through so many sinks of dishes and so many humiliating courting events.

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.