I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book.

My self-editing process is intense.

I suppress the vast majority of what I write.

I was writing notes, but not composing poems. The Hunter began to develop out of this fragmented process.

I think, for me, humour needs to be used like a strong spice - sparingly.

A sequence works in a way a collection never can.

Well, we all start thinking we're going to be Romantic rock stars, but then reality hits and you realize no one reads you but other poets.

I do try to let what is obviously unintended yet naturally good stay in.

I'm not interested in being easy anymore. Readable, yes. Easy, no.

It's a bit of a crapshoot out there with young writers right now anyway.

With 'Carousel' I had an idea and it all came out quickly.

I've often entertained paranoid suspicions about my fridge and what it's been doing to my poetry when I'm not looking, but I never even considered that my fan was thinking about me.

In my opinion, Al Moritz may be the best poet of his generation in Canada.

I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book.

Humour is a fine line to walk in poetry, as in fiction. I just think it's harder to write. It's harder to keep the respect of the reader too.

I wanted to rock back and forth between myth and distant futures, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It felt a bit like prophecy and a bit like storytelling.

Then I discovered I loved writing poetry more than fiction.

I think the main influence has been living in New York City. Aside from all the crap around 9/11, I find it very demanding to think amid all the noise and visual pollution.

The poetry community here has been extraordinarily welcoming.

I feel as though I've fooled the world into thinking I'm an adult and now they're letting me procreate.

I am still interested in the long or serial poem, but have written a few smaller things. I may start sending to journals again in a year or so... that's about it.

New York was breaking my concentration and disintegrating my thoughts.

I still write the occasional short story, and poked at a novel once, but it's just not what I want to do.

I no longer feel pressure to produce fiction.

In fact, in some ways, I actually feel much more confident about the quality of Carousel than I do about The Cottage Builder's Letter: probably because of its cohesive nature.

The whole competition thing disturbs me. Not that I wasn't a part of it when I first started.

I am certainly suffering from a modicum of performance anxiety.

I guess there is also an element of deliberate change involved. Each of my books has been, at least from my point of view, radically different from the last.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal, or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction, but often it's really just about the money, the perceived prestige.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.

There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

When women go wrong, men go right after them.

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on.

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

The Germans certainly - the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way.

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

For me, romance isn't an over-the-top act. It's someone offering to help and to support me. Or if that person thinks I'm making the wrong decision, he'll tell me. I want him to be honest, because being that honest takes a lot of guts.

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

I can do whatever I want. They will tell me if what I am doing is stupid or a total waste of time. I may tell them that they are wrong, and we will come to an agreement.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.

I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.

To be honest, I don't want No. 1's anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind the odd few, but I'd also like a record going in at eight and staying around.