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

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" 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. "

" Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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! "

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

" Libraries are where it all begins. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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'm a night person. My best times are midnight to six, actually. "

" 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. "

" I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding. "