What writing does is to reveal.

To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you.

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.

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

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

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

For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard.