Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

... to write well it is entirely necessary to read widely and deeply. Good poems are the best teachers.

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

I grew up in a sad, depressed place. I got out. Poetry saved my life.

... Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.

I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves-we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together, we are each other's destiny.