If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.

I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names?

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.

It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded.

Anyone can tell you that how you're raised as a child has a great deal to do with how you behave as an adult and whether you have complexes or whether you need to prove yourself or all that kind of stuff and yet the mother in a traditional family who has raised a child never makes it in the history books.

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

Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.