All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe.

I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience.

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there.

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about.