It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.

Poetry [is] more necessary than ever as a fire to light our tongues.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

I think the job of writing and literature is to encourage each one of us to believe that we're living in a story.

Teaching and writing are separate, but serve/feed one another in so many ways. Writing travels the road inward, teaching, the road out - helping OTHERS move inward - it is an honor to be with others in the spirit of writing and encouragement.

Mystery: Everything felt better before you got there than when you actually got there. When you actually got there, you didn't quite have the energy to be there.