“One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.”

“Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.”

“Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.”

“For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas.”

“The idea is to spin the wheel of metaphors and images until sparks of associations begin to fly for the reader.”

“Poetry is an orphan of silence.”

“Memory, all-night's bedside tattoo artist.”

“I love America," he'd tell us. We were going to make a million dollars manufacturing objects we had seen in dreams that night.”

“Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley.”

“The ambition of much of today's literary theory seems to be to find ways to read literature without imagination.”

“One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.”