Think of how much we stress about living up to our potential, and how it creates anxiety and terror in people in short, stops them from living their life as fully as they might out of fear and self-loathing.

It's terrible to know that no matter how you try to help your child, his condition will worsen.

Nonfiction ties your hands a bit, and just like writing poetry in rhyme, it can force you to make more brutal decisions in terms of word choice, plot, etc.

I love poetry, but I find it so difficult to write well.

I do write fiction, and I find it more difficult, but also more liberating. On the one hand, you can make up the story, but you have to make up the story.

I don't believe in God, but I do believe in that chaotic reality, and also this: that none of us knows anything about anything. Period.

I have been, earlier in my life, a lazy writer. I'd spend three hours at the gym to avoid writing, or I'd just find other distractions - reading, doing laundry, talking on the phone, etc. But suddenly I was like a laser beam: I was relentlessly focused, sometimes to the detriment of other things.

I honestly turned to writing because I didn't know what else to do, and because a friend had gently suggested it.

I write one poem a year, usually in January or February.