 Adversity is a stimulus. |
| Trusting your individual uniqueness challenges you to lay yourself open. |
| I had a toy theater and a magic lantern, and when I was eight I built a stage for theatricals in the attic. |
| The most astonishing joy is to receive from the muses the gift of a whole lyric. |
| Work in the theater sharpened my verse and my cinema. |
| For me a poem has to sing out of itself and the lilt of it carries the magic. |
| I consider my films to be poems that are all as personal as my writing and as hand-made. |
| I often start writing in order to excite an expansive emotion. |
| A born poet knows in his cradle that a poetic life is the only life worth living. |
| My major aim in writing is to set out flags and issue wake-up calls. |
| Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago, when books of poems were best-sellers. |
| If bitterness wants to get into the act, I offer it a cookie or a gumdrop. |
| I'm happy to report that my inner child is still ageless. |
| Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy is. |
| Consciousness is the glory of creation. |
| True delicacy is not a fragile thing. |
| Most poets in their youth begin in adolescent sadness. I find it more rewarding to end in gladness. |
| I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public. |
| Amazement awaits us at every corner. |
| The American public does not know poets exist. |
