Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only two things that are truly international, poetry and wine.

If I could come back as anything - I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my second choice.

the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by.

I do not understand why any poet or writer would run for office; that's a different sense of who you are. I'm just a poet. I am as truthful as I can be. That makes me an artist. I heed the people; I do not lead the people.

It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.

My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them.