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

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

" It makes me furious to hear haters of all skin colors - especially Christian, Jewish, and Muslim fundamentalists - deride other people because of their different beliefs and lifestyles. "

" Libraries are where it all begins. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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! "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on. "

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

" Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor. "

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

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

" For many years, I thought a poem was a whisper overheard, not an aria heard. "

" To write for PC reasons, because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else. It has to matter to you. "

" 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. "

" As an African-American, as a woman, I think that I've been sensitized to the way in which history privileges the white male and the way in which certain aspects of history, the things that we are taught in school, the things that are handed down, never, never entered the picture though they might have been very important. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level. "

" There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints. "

" 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. "

" I write short stories, and I wrote a play. "

" 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. "

" 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. "