“A dog’s will is the purest kind of free will.”

Oliver, Stephen Shore, Cecilia McLorin Salvant, Ikiru, Orwell’s nature.

Jane Hirshfield, Ada Limón, Tony Hoagland, Joni Mitchell, Fred Hersch, Bertolt Brecht.

“Poems, despite the ways they are sometimes taught, are not crossword-puzzle constructions; first drafts, and many stages of revision, take place at a level closer to daydream.”

Seven Guitars, Fred and Esperanza, Edith Wharton, Sentence of the Week, Oliver.

“At a time when brevity seems the soul of theater, August Wilson is one of our most operatic playwrights.”

Happiness according to William Blake, Dance Fever, Apple TV’s Severance, A.O. Scott, John Donne.

“Humanity, as [Donne] saw it, was rotten with corruption and weakness and failure - and even so it was the great light of the universe.”

On Great American Songs, scribbling, Delhi raptors and NYC.

“Even in chilly March, New York life is lived on the street, and soaking it in—characters and conversations, flashes of beauty and jabs of insight—is a particular New York kind of joy.”