We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love—a connection between things.

It is the first experience you ever had of reading a decent poem: 'Oh, somebody else is lonely, too!

I remember I was a child, and when I grew up I was a poet. It all happened at sixty miles an hour and on days when the clock stopped and all of humanity fit into a little chapel, into a pinecone, a shot of ouzo, a snail's shell, a piece of soggy rye on the pavement.

[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.

in the beginning William Shakespeare was a baby, and knew absolutely nothing. He couldn't even speak.

My happiness is marred only by my failure to attain it.

Poetry is sentimental to begin with. To write a sentimental poem is an act of redundancy.