"Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back."

"The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times."

"The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new."

"I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that."

"Art is the soul's attempt to give enduring form to the formless. Reflect upon this whenever doubt clouds your horizon."

"Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques."

"Wisdom is the quiet art of recognizing what can be changed and releasing what cannot. This remains the cornerstone of personal mastery."

"In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job."