Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.

When I was young, I was older than I am today.