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

I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.

To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.