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" I've always wanted to write poems and nothing else. "

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" Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? "

" I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. "

" I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them. "

" I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing. "

" People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. "

" It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone. "

" There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay. "

" I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it. "

" My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing. "

" Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules. "

" I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life. "

" I read Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, every day. "

" We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. "

" I always feel that whatever isn't necessary shouldn't be in a poem. "

" Instead of taking the reader by the hand and running him down the hill, I want to lead him into a house of many rooms, and leave him alone in each of them. "

" As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. "

" Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. "

" There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty. "

" I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read. "

" My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work. "

" So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray. "

" Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along. "

" I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all. "

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" I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write. "

" I worked probably 25 years by myself, just writing and working, not trying to publish much, not giving readings. "

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" You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. "