"Our imagination just needs space. It's all it needs, that moment where you just sort of stare into the distance where your brain gets to sort of somehow rise up."

"Sadness is a very interesting idea, this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness, and the idea that sadness is very loud, and happiness is quiet."

"The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present."

"If you don't mark your successes, the day your ship comes in could be just another day at the office, and there's no poetry in that."

"The air that people breathe in many Chinese cities has become dangerously polluted. Their food supply is subject to constant contamination scandals. Now it appears that not merely stagnant ponds but the water people draw from deep underground is already tainted."

"I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation."

"I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress, so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up."

"France is not poetic she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic."