I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

and each of his voices left his body in a different colored soul and floated up towards the sun still singing.

One good maxim to keep in mind, and I can't remember who said it, "You meet the same people on the way down that you meet on the way up, but you're going the other way."

When we're young, we like happy endings. When we're a little older, we think happy endings are unrealistic and so we prefer bad but credible endings. When we're older still, we realize happy endings aren't so bad after all.