“I would like The Discovery of Poetry to be a field guide to the natural pleasures of language - a happiness we were born to have.”

“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice. ”

“You never know, of course, when you write a book what its fate will be. Sink out of sight, soar to the sunwho knows. I love this quote from Frances Mayes. It pretty much sums up the Great Unknown o...”

“There are reasons we congregate in these hot spots- to worship beauty and to feel its effects light up the electrolytes in the bloodstream.”

“Images are the pegs holding down memory's billowing tent.”

“It is not 2006 all over the world. So who are you in a place where 1950 or 1920 is about to arrive?”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”