"It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction."

"I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents."

"We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand."

"Everything you can imagine is real."

"While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song."

"On 'Metallica,' I recorded six or seven different guitar solos for almost every song, took the best aspects of each solo, mapped out a master solo and made a composite. Then I learned how to play the composite solo, tightened it up and replayed it for the final version."

"Yes, my first memory of singing, in general, was of a Christmas song. And then listening to Christmas music was really the first music I was ever connected to."

"Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write. When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She's not a symbol."