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" I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing. "

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" 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. "

" The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I've seen ecstasy or something. "

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

" I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about! "

" Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine. "

" 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. "

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

" Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet. "

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

" Libraries are where it all begins. "

" Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure. "

" Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture. "

" I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more. "

" The American Dream is a phrase we'll have to wrestle with all of our lives. It means a lot of things to different people. I think we're redefining it now. "

" 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! "

" I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them. "

" I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned. "

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

" Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early. "

" Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. "

" 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. "

" What writing does is to reveal. "

" One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits. "