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I didn’t know I would be any good. But I knew I wanted to be a poet.

Ring, ring, ring at 2 a.m. means meth’s got my brother in the slammer again.

The rich man adorns himself and the elegant man gets dressed.

Writing at night just feels . . . sneaky. There’s an outlaw quality to it.

The photo portraits express the unguarded essence of each author.

Who will call out as I descend, the world blurring by in sleep and despair?

Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

I’m from Boston, is that why I imagine Fredrick’s emotions for him?

I don’t know if I’ve written anything without changing the details.

Lie down & whisper all your careless dreams into my votive ear.

One spent the better part of this life writing in the dirt with a stick.

Gail Godwin

When I walked in, the kids applauded. They were like, “The poet’s back!”

I’ve never heard of Badgley Mischka (A person? Two people? Man?)

I thought how she must thrash with savage agility when she made love.

Donald Hall

Lee has taken on several of the great novelists of the past century.

No author dodged readers who were indifferent to masterpieces.

The power to alter one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark.

I’ve wavered in confidence, but never on whether I was going to write.

Barth looked after his students beyond anything expected of him.

Suddenly John was there, in slim blue jeans and a rough white shirt.

One of the most important human capacities is compassion.

She has beautiful cheekbones, but her eyes are nearly colorless.

I came to computers while trying to run away from literature.

In the best fiction, there exists a palpable sense of discovery.

We lived below the poverty level. I wasn’t allowed to desire objects.

The main thing a poet tries to do, above all things, is to write a poem.