I honor English majors. It's a dumb thing to major in. It leads nowhere. It's good to be dumb, it allows us to love something for no reason. That's the best kind of love.

I read Eve Ensler and thought it was fabulous. Not only that, but it was really the only thing I could relate to about cancer.

I consider writing a legitimate Zen practice.

You'll lose your reader if you are vague, not clear, and not present. We love details, personal connections, stories.

We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.

Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.

poems are small moments of enlightenment