The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.

And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us. That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth.

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

I don't expect you'll hear me writing any poems to the greater glory of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

You don’t choose a story, it chooses you.

A look at the past reminds us of how great is the distance, and how short, over which we have come. The past makes us ask what we have done with us. It makes us ask whether our very achievements are not ironical counterpoint and contrast to our fundamental failures.

I reckon I am a smart aleck, but it is just a way to pass the time.