To me, the mind seems to be spread out in the whole body - the senses are part of the brain. I guess they're not where the thinking is done.

Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up.

I didn't have time to sit down and look at the work of a year and choose what to type.

Every poet I know - although there may be some I don't know who lead very different lives, who maybe live in the country and don't teach - tends to be just like the rest of us: just really busy, really overcommitted.

Poets are like steam valves, where the ordinary feelings of ordinary people can escape and be shown.

The decision for me was whether to have 'The Father' be a book that told a story - from the point of view of this speaker, the daughter - without, as in the earlier books, then having a section on something else and a section on something else.

Seeing yourself as responsible for the quality of your relationship, as a prime mover in your life, I think is a bold, amazing step.