Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don't feel safe.

Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.

You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?

I began to realize that this idea of the lighter the better and the darker the worse was really - had an impact on sororities, on friendships, on all sorts of things, and it was stunning to me.

The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.

Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time.

A man ain't nothing but a man. But a son? Well, now, that's somebody.