If I could write a novel while I'm walking, I probably would.

I had to do the academic writing. At a top research university, publishing of a certain kind is very important. So your friend is right. You can't do three things well.

I look at my young students, and I no longer have the sense that, oh, I'm the authority and they have to meet a certain standard. It's like, oh, look at these young ones. They've got such a hard road in front of them. I don't envy them having life ahead of them.

When people say "the body," frequently they mean the literal body, the physical body.

Sometimes, in my published complaints about not being a writer, I have recalled the prospect - the yearning to be a writer - as it first formed for me.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

I have some weak poems in that new collection, which is why I'm not ready to send the collection out yet.