I know there's some poetry that sort of sounds like daisies, but most of the good poetry is also [political], you can feel the heartbeat; it's about some situation that concerns human beings under duress. It's suggesting a solution, or just acknowledging that [the situation] exists. Art does that.

My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that? Eight children and that's all I remember.

Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

My metaphor is that evil always has a top hat and a cape, and goodness is over there in the corner. For me it's just too easy, if you hate your country or your wife, so you kill them. You can't think through that, you can't feel through that, you can't do the work. And now we have guns. Solution? I don't think so.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

We're all surrounded by what I call faux language, fake language of commerce, of news media.