“Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!”

Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.

Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.

Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one’s behind me, anyway.

Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

If the world cares about my poems, I need to take care of the poet.

When I say be creative I don’t mean that you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem.

When I say be creative I don’t mean that you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem.

If a poem hasn’t ripped apart your soul; you haven’t experienced poetry.

If a poem hasn’t ripped apart your soul; you haven’t experienced poetry.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

I write poems, I meditate. I don’t live up to people’s expectations. I don’t do the conventional cool things – I know I am the coolest person.

Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.