My suspicion is that once you have literacy in place, the readership has not changed very much.

If you read three books a day you couldn't read all the poetry that's being published.

It's the same with this idea of a literate public, and also of a democracy in which people have access to and really read the best books. It turns out that even when you create this kind of environment, maybe only 10 percent of the people want to read those books.

A movement got started for common schools, and by the end of the 19th century, 91 percent of Americans could read and write.

Poetry, when it takes sides, when it proposes solutions, isn't any smarter than anybody else.

Environmental regulation looked like it was going to be under serious attack, and they were giving all of those speeches about getting government off people's backs.

As an artist, you have the job of working out whatever is given you to work out.