Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us a maverick, the darling stubborn one who won't listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force.

What misery to be afraid of death. What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven.

I want to be braver and more honest about my life. When you're sexually abused, there's a lot of damage.

Maybe the world, without us, is the real poem.