Apparently, I've been considered a recluse.
Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.
Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.
I'm going to die one day. I know it's coming for me, too. I'll be a mountain, I'll be a stone on the beach. I'll be nourishment.
I'd rather write about polar bears than people.
The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they're full of bicycle trails.
To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born.
Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules.
As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other.
I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.
I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.
My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work.
I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all.
I simply do not distinguish between work and play.
I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.
There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.
Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private.
Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did.
