As Sokrates tells it, your story begins the moment Eros enters you. That incursion is the biggest risk of your life. How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom, and decorum of the things inside you. As you handle it you come into contact with what is inside you, in a sudden and startling way. You perceive what you are, what you lack, what you could be.

I am a drop of gold he would say I am molten matter returned from the core of earth to tell you interior things-

At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad.

I never really got over the fun of making letters.

M: Is he smart I: She yes very smart sees right through me M: In my day we valued blindness rather more

Caught between the tongue and the taste.

When I began to be published, people got the idea that I should 'teach writing,' which I have no idea how to do and don't really believe in.