We are only midway through the central verse of our youth when we see ourselves begin to blacken. ... We had been seduced into thinking that we were immortal and suddenly the affair is over.

When I desire you a part of me is gone.

I don't know that we really think any thoughts; we think connections between thoughts. That's where the mind moves, that's what's new, and the thoughts themselves have probably been there in my head or lots of other people's heads for a long time.

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.

Homer must have felt this pressure to come up with an epic poem that would sound totally new to an audience that had loved his previous best-seller.

Maybe I could have been good as a drawer if I had done it as much as I did writing, but it's more scary to draw. It's more revealing. You can't disguise yourself in drawing.

[Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop.