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" I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things. "

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" It's unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there's this need to have things quantified and graded. "

" You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible. "

" In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things. "

" It's the combination of the intimate and the public that I find so exciting about being poet laureate. "

" I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry. "

" For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about it. I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art. "

" The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings. "

" My favorite poets may not be your bread and butter. I have more favorite poems than favorite poets. "

" I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person. "

" Under adversity, under oppression, the words begin to fail, the easy words begin to fail. In order to convey things accurately, the human being is almost forced to find the most precise words possible, which is a precondition for literature. "

" The joy of working at something to find out what it means to me is what I grew up with. "

" I think one of the things that people tend to forget is that poets do write out of life. It isn't some set piece that then gets put up on the shelf, but that the impetus, the real instigation for poetry is everything that's happening around us. "

" I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive. "

" Libraries are where it all begins. "

" I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step. "

" Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry. "

" Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely. "

" I keep the drafts of each poem in color-coded folders. I pick up the folders according to how I feel about that color that day. "

" My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends. "

" When we are touched by something it's as if we're being brushed by an angel's wings. "

" I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem. "

" To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet. "

" All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself. "

" There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry. "

" I didn't know writers could be real live people, because I never knew any writers. "

" If they don't read, if they don't love reading; if they don't find themselves compulsively reading, I don't think they're really a writer. "

" People write me from all over the country, asking me, and sometimes even telling me, what they think a poet laureate should do. I found that immensely valuable. "

" I make a discovery in a poem as I write it. "

" I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer. "

" What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world! "