Politics has become unbelievably and unfortunately way too much about how much money is involved rather than what kind of ideas are involved.

For too long we have focused on our differences - in our politics and backgrounds in our race and beliefs - rather than cherishing the unity and pride that binds us together.

Politics is human beings it's addition rather than subtraction.

First I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

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.

If a politician murders his mother the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide.

I'd never really been content with just churning out these slim volumes every three or four years. I've always tried to think of poetry as an active ingredient in the language rather than just something that appears between the covers of thin books.

I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.

Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things but to me they're more visual than oral and they almost really belong on the wall rather than in a book. I haven't the least idea of where poetry is going.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.