All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

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.

Everybody who's anybody longs to be a tree.

If I begin writing a poem that means I'm intrigued in some way by whatever it's about and that if I'm not trying to find something new and pushing the envelope in the poem I can't expect my reader to be particularly excited about it either.

I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.

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

It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles.