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

Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

If the poem is so moving that even if you have no experience in that particular setting be it 1920's Harlem let's say. You still are so moved that you can put yourself in that position. That means that the writer has managed to go beyond the personal and touch the humanity in all of us and it's really a blast to read it because I realize how that this does hold true for the truly great poems.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.