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

I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Don't be so fast, you're all you've got.

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

I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person.

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.