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.

I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day.

I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

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.

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

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.