... the reason why there are so few first-class poets is that many people have intense feelings or first-class minds but to get the two together so that you will be willing to put a poem through sixty drafts, to be that self-critical, to keep breaking it down, that is what is rare. Right now most poetry is just self-indulgence.

No partner in a love relationship... should feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.

“How does one grow up?” I asked a friend the other day. There was a slight pause; then she answered, “By thinking.”

Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there.

I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

I’m only able to write poetry, for the most part, when I have a Muse, a woman who focuses the world for me.