I learnt more about politics during one South Dakota dust storm than in seven years at the university.

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

The United States brags about its political system but the President says one thing during the election something else when he takes office something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats we will stop telling the truth about them.

Poetry asks people to have values form opinions care about some other part of experience besides making money and being successful on the job.

So much of my poetry begins with something that I can describe in visual terms so thinking about distance thinking about how life begins and what might be watching us.

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

One of the things I've always liked about my husband is he's very good at lots of stuff. He was an English teacher when I met him. He wrote poetry and played the guitar. As time went on he decided to go into economics so he's very analytical and mathematical in addition to his artsy side.

All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.