Sentimental assertions are always a form of detachment; they confront the acute, terrible awareness of individual pain, the sharp particularity of loss or the fierce individuality of passion with the dulling universal certainty of platitude.

I want what everybody wants, that's how I know I'm still breathing.

Into the paradise of euphony, the good poet must introduce hell. Broken paradises are the only kind worth reading.

Because the golden egg gleamed in my basket once, though my childhood became an immense sheet of darkening water I was Noah, and I was his ark, and there were two of every animal inside me

We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and individuality will disappear.

We love disasters that have nothing to do with us

And then we ease him out of that worn-out body with a kiss, and he's gone like a whisper, the easiest breath.