Politics is a lot of serendipity. You're in the right place and the right time and you've got the right message and it either connects for you or or it doesn't.

And humility in politics means accepting that one party doesn't have all the answers recognising that working in partnership is progress not treachery.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

I never got into politics for it to be a career. It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go.

By nominating Chuck Hagel to be his Defense secretary President Obama is putting forward an aloof contrarian who doesn't suffer fools - a striving politician who considers himself above politics.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because unless we do all of these things it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.

Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.

I think that concrete poetry seems to have as far as I can see come to a kind of a dead end. It doesn't seem to be going any further than it went in its high period of about five or six years ago.

When you're looking that far out you're giving people their place in the universe it touches people. Science is often visual so it doesn't need translation. It's like poetry it touches you.

Poetry seems to sink into us the way prose doesn't. I can still quote verses I learned when I was very young but I have trouble remembering one line of a novel I just finished reading.

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry but obviously like everybody I have a set of criteria for reading poems and I'm not shy about presenting them so if people ask for my critical response to a poem I tell them what works and why and what doesn't work and why.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play it has a poignancy to it.

A lot of people think 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

Listen real poetry doesn't say anything it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that I just don't like it when characters do things that are funny to the writer but you don't know why they're doing it and it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't work if the bad guys kill his mother's uncle's friend's neighbor's pet dog. You've got to make the stakes high.

My pet peeve and my goal in life is to somehow get an adjective for 'integrity' in the dictionary. 'Truthful' doesn't really cover it or 'genuine.' It should be like 'integritus.'