My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets.

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

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

To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

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

I wish someone had told me that my stories are really mine to tell. In other words, anything that I think is important or that has moved me has the ability to move somebody else.