Proportion is all; and, in sports at school, I lost it by surrendering to the awful significance of my self-consciousness. Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

Romance dies hard, because its very nature is to want to live.

I feel that writers think with their noses to the ground, and the dark stuff kind of comes to me more, even though I really am sort of an upbeat guy. It's an honest descent into darkness. And you can't have the joy without the grief - it's why we listen to Mozart's 'Requiem.'

Teaching well draws from the same well that writing draws from: the reserves of compassion and ability to listen and concentrate on another. So I have to have fine line between teaching and writing. I try not to ever think of career. I just try to go to the dream world every day.

I read poetry every day. I love the boiled down essence of poetry. I look for poetry in prose. In a way that evocative.

The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.