Victoria Chang quotes:

I question my own talent and ability to make creative work every single day.

I definitely have favorite books by favorite poets, but poets' books also vary. I could like some books, but not like another book.

I do think that given my background as a poet, and also I work in a different field, you're sort of neither here nor there.

I've always felt alone and isolated, and living on the West Coast, there's no poetry community out here, and if there is, it's really spread out - because it's LA, it's spread out.

I think I love humor in poetry, but not that slapstick cheap easy humor, but that uncomfortable, "did she say that out loud?" kind of humor.

I can't help but go against the grain, I suppose it is in my fabric to be a rule-breaker.

I just didn't want any order in anything. I have to leave an ordered life for them - the kids - and my job. I have to be at my desk at a certain time, and I have to answer e-mails within a certain time period.

I think being a poet, period, is isolating.

I think my brain is full of collisions and that's how I like to read and process information. I'm always comparing things and I think I do that subconsciously when I'm reading books of poetry.

It took me awhile to not be ashamed to be a poet in the business environment, and to be a business person in the poet environment.

I've always just liked writing poetry, but it's much later that I've discovered that there's this whole poetry world out there, that you almost have to be accepted into, like this little club.

I've read a lot more than most of the people that I know, except for one of my really close friends reads way more than I do.

As I published books, I realized, that's not really what I want. I don't care about the books as much anymore. I just want to write poetry.

Everyone always says that having kids is messy and sloppy. It's true, but you as a parent have to try to bring some boundaries and control over that experience, or you'd have out-of-control kids.

For the most part, it's a world of artists that are very in their own heads.

Having children can be such a gift, but it can be a crushing experience for a certain kind of mom. And I am that certain kind of mom.

I am always reading, always, and tons of things at once. I wouldn't say I'm a voracious reader, though. I never finish books that fast, because I'm always reading so many things at once.

I feel like I give myself all day long to other people and other things, and I still seem like I have something to write once in awhile. Not often, though.

I love being part of poetry conversations. I love talking about what I've read.

I love when I meet generous poets, and generous meaning nice people, who give to the poetry community, who do interviews, read other people's books, and talk about them, spread the...love, I guess. That means a lot to me.

I think e-mail and social media and all that has made me feel way less isolated than ever before.

I think I've always felt very isolated, and I'm sure lots of poets do.

I think my way of being "funny" is just saying things that people think but have learned not to say, whereas, I haven't learned not to say them.

I was sort of obsessed about corporate people committing suicide.

I'm a total bottoms-up kind of person. I like things to bubble up.

In general, I find that poets spend a lot of time thinking about themselves, and not a lot of time thinking about other poets, or other poetry. Unless they think about how it affects them, or how it could impact them.

I've always been intrigued with the male characters in novels like 'Pride and Prejudice' such as Mr. Darcy, and this poem is part of a series of poems that explore desire and obsessions. The poems have been sitting in a drawer for a few years, so I decided to dust them off and work on them again since I have not written a new poem in more than three years. I'm not sure anything will become of the series, but at least it gives me something to work on in a period where I feel very uncreative.

I've always done things that were good for me, whether they were viewed as being as prestigious or whatever.

I've always wanted editors that actually edited my poems.

I've never thought about the con of living in New York as a writer. Because I always think, Oh, what fun to be around so many writers. Because I've never been around so many writers.

Most of my writing friends are working in academia. Most of my business school friends are always talking about bringing companies public, and money, and making money, and lots and lots of money. It's just a different environment.

Most people are trying to go digital, and trying to do different things with poetry. McSweeney's is going in the opposite direction - going more classic, and retro, which is all coming back.

My gut was always that if I taught students poetry, I would give too much of myself to them and have nothing left.

My life all-around is really different than a lot of other poets. Not poets that are parents, too, but just that I can hardly find anyone who works in the industries that I've worked in.

My life in general, orderly or not, it allows me more freedom in my own writing. Sometimes I wonder, though - I have friends that sit around and just write all day. And I think it's the coolest thing.

Our lives are short and everything sort of regresses to the mean.

People who are too uptight make me nervous.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and other mornings I feel like crap.

Sometimes people ask me to do stuff in New York, like "Can you read at this thing?" And I say, "Nooo, I can't just get on a plane with these two screaming children - I can't just get rid of them on such short notice and take vacation and fly over to New York."

The whole process of getting a book published is just part of the process. The last of the process that I enjo

There's an attraction to emotional clusters or hypocrisies or awkwardness. A desire to expose something or point at something that's already poking out.

There's so much stuff being written! Every year, how many books come out? I can't keep up, and I read a lot. It's amazing.

We're all just a part of this large, spiraling, constantly fluid hierarchy and changing. At some points in your life, you feel crushed by that, depending on who you come in contact with.

Whether people like your work or not, but it's also based on a lot of other things - geography, who you happen to connect with and where they sit in that ladder - and all of that felt really isolating and disheartening to me when I figured it out.