Every creative act is an act of hypocrisy and violence. You may have to think about it for a while, but I am sure you can discover your own.

I study nature so as not to do foolish things.

People, the people we really love, where did they come from? What did we do to deserve them?

Yes, the mistrust of poetry has a long history, for a variety of reasons, but they all come down to sentiment and invention over fact and truth. Figurative language is suspicious.

Every creative act is an act of hypocrisy and violence. You may have to think about it for a while, but I am sure you can discover your own.

[On filling out a grant application:] I seek an extended period of time, free from all distractions, so that I might be free to be distracted.

The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it.