I was more worn out with the "Odyssey" than it was with the "Iliad." I mean, just comparing those two - you can see how it's changing, how the language of the "Iliad" is somehow monstrously new - and that language of the "Odyssey" is more comfortable, even for us.

Life pulls softly inside your bindings. The pod glows - dear stench.

Desire is no light thing.

Everything depends on liking the people and trusting the people. You have to assume that whatever they do will be as good as you want the thing to be and just go ahead with that.

I never had much education in English poetry as such.

He was trying to fit this Herakles onto the one he knew.

To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.