“Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.”

“If poets often commit suicide, it is not because their poems are bad but because they are good. Whoever heard of a bad poet committing suicide? The reader is only a little better off. The exhilaration of a good poem lasts twenty minutes, an hour at most.Unlike the scientist, the artist has reentry problems that are frequent and catastrophic.”

“Nobody ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have while trying to write one.”

“I dropped my hoe and ran into the house and started to write this poem, 'End of Summer.’ It began as a celebration of wild geese. Eventually the geese flew out of the poem, but I like to think they left behind the sound of their beating wings.”

“No one ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have tried while trying to write one. ”

“You have endless ways you can commit suicide without dying dying.”