Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.

When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings.

It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

My best times are midnight to six actually. I'll leaf through my notebooks and if something catches my eye and I feel like I want to transfer it from the notebook to the page, I do, and then comes this very strange process which is difficult to describe in that I'll write until I get stuck or I can't go any further or I'm boring myself or whatever and then I might go to another poem.

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?