I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from my South, be outside it, to understand it.

Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.

When I was growing up there, North Gulfport was referred to as 'Little Vietnam' because of the perception of crime and depravity within its borders - as if its denizens were simply a congregation of the downtrodden.

I am interested in 18th century natural philosophy, science, particularly botany, the study of hybridity in plants and animals, which, of course, then allows me to consider the hybridity of language.

We can conceive of eternity because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star and see infinite space beyond.

One, I love the creativity. I love the ability to create a capital structure that is appropriate for a company, no matter what field it happens to be in.

If you're an artist, it's OK to put your money into your art. The advantage, in hindsight, is that you become the film, and the film becomes you; you breathe it.

Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself.