"Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas, play with language, solve problems, use my imagination, and draw on my own childhood."

"Otherwise I don't read much adult poetry at all, because I'm not smart enough and mostly I don't get it."

"I look for poetry in English because it's the only language I read."

"Frankly, writing poetry for children is plain old fun, and I consider myself blessed to have such a delightful career."

"I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth."

"Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is."

"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it."

"You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it."