For the past thirty years or so, much American poetry has been marked by an earnestness that rejects the comic. This has nothing to do with seriousness. The comic can be very serious. The trouble with the earnest is that it seeks to be commended. It seeks to be praised for its intention more than for what it is saying.

I think I made a mistake with [Jane] Austen by reading all six in a row. There are similarities to the plots so by the time I got to the last one I could anticipate what was happening too easily. But her characterizations are amazing.

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

When a philosopher, scientist, or psychologist discusses the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal, he or she attempts to convince us with the tools of discursive thought ... An artist does it differently ... their primary approach is different, even though both groups, if you will, are investigating the actual, the ideal, and the discrepancy in between.

They are asleep. This is the condition they prefer. They are afraid of the world and sleep is a way of dealing with their fear. Someday they will wake. Perhaps something frightful will happen. Indeed, there is no better invitation to the frightful than ignorance - that is, sleep. (29)

There are many reasons for violence. This is just something that sometimes happens. We'd see it in treatment centers - the child who'd suffered something awful. Even in the best recovery there'd be a fear that everything would fall apart and they'd become victims again. And their final loyalty was to themselves. They couldn't be forced. They preferred to wreck everything, preferred self-destruction to surrender. (175)