People think they're gonna make a living off poetry. Ten years ago, maybe a couple of people did. Right now, no one, I don't think.

The things I wanted to be when I was a kid were an archeologist, because of dinosaur bones; a garbage man, because they got to ride on the side of the trucks; and a writer.

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.

The appeal for drugs has dwindled. Except for actual opium. If I could get real opium, I'd stir it in my hot coffee every morning. People keep giving me marijuana. I've got pouches in a drawer. I've been meaning to smoke a joint and watch Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. I planned to do this three months ago and I still haven't gotten around to it.

We're finite creatures, doomed to never get a fraction of what wisdom it would take to deal with infinity. My book has a lot to do with the unbelievable power and beauty of that almost unattainable freedom. Since none of us really gets to know it, we don't know what extremely powerful dangers might lurk in it.

How do I start writing a book? I sit there, I come up with an opening line, and then I go little by little. I'll wonder, Well, what's coming? And that goes right through to the very end. For over a dozen years now, I've had a recurring dream where I'm reading a book and the pages are blank, but as I read, the words come to exist as fast as my eyes can move. Strange, strange thing.

People think they're gonna make a living off poetry. Ten years ago, maybe a couple of people did. Right now, no one, I don't think.