Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.

Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.

I never had aspirations to go into politics or medicine. I always wanted to be an artist of some sort. I wasn't so politically motivated. I felt that the world from an early age was disappointing. My father taught me about the bomb, and it was eye-opening. From then on, I thought grown-ups needed to do a better job. I still think that.

I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it.

My mother had no end of tragedy in her life. She would make herself get up and take a deep breath and go out and do laundry. Hang up sheets.

Sometimes [people] seem to think I came out of the womb, you know, cursing, with an electric guitar.

As a child I was such an intense daydreamer; I could be so gone that I had to be smacked to come back. They were really worried that I had some kind of catatonia or something because I would go so far out. Because all I wanted to do was talk to god as a child.