Dorothy was in that state human beings passed through at the beginning of a love affair, in which they desire to say anything and everything to the beloved, to the alter ego, before they have learned what the real Other can and can't understand, can and can't accept.

Funny way to spend your life, though, studying another chap's versifying.

Human beings love stories because they safely show us beginnings, middles and ends.

I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.

I did a lot of my writing as though I was an academic, doing some piece of research as perfectly as possible.

A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children.

An odd phrase, "by heart," he would add, as though poems were stored in the bloodstream.