Writing down your thoughts is both necessary and harmful. It leads to eccentricity, narcissism, preserves what should be let go. On the other hand, these notes intensify the inner life, which, left unexpressed, slips through your fingers. If only I could find a better kind of journal, humbler, one that would preserve the same thoughts, the same flesh of life, which is worth saving.

I write in order to comprehend, not to express myself.

Poetry is a presentiment of the truth.

My poems are more my silence than my speech. Just as music is a kind of quiet. Sounds are needed only to unveil the various layers of silence.

I’m moved by everything broken and crippled. Since that’s how we really are.

I am that which lies beyond time. Like a melody, which sounds completely only after the last note is played.

The way a source strains toward the light, toward the air. Its laboring work, its effort, its black passageways like despair. That’s the way a poet looks for words. With muscles, gestures.