Maybe all pain in the world requires poetry.

The stories are what no one wants to talk about. So you make up a story because no one is going to tell you the truth.

[Courage] always bigger than what you think you can handle, but you're never going to be given something you can't handle. So you say, "Okay, when you tell me what it is that I'm supposed to do, please give me the courage to do it."

You don't want somebody who doesn't know his own heart, do you? You'll find someone who's brave enough to love you. Someday. One day. Not today.

I'm from Chicago, so the Chicago working-class poets still mean a great deal to me.

I was reading all these male writers who were doing wild and wonderful things. It gave me permission to experiment.

The only reason we write - well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn't generalize - is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors - my father, his mother and her mother - to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself.