“I've been fascinated over the years by the way refrains work. Think, say, of the refrains in Yeats' ballads. Ideally, each time the refrain comes back in a poem, it is both the same and diff...”

“When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program, we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing, and we required the fiction writers to take workshops...”

“The sole literary presence from my childhood was my grandfather, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, who eccentrically copied poems into the backs of his books. After he died, when I was 8 years...”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me...”

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.”

“So many books, so little time.”

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”