I've never written the things I'd like to write that I've admired all my life. Maybe one never does.

What the Man-Moth fears most he must do.

All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'.

It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos. The rackety, icy, offshore wind numbed our faces on one side; disrupted the formation of a lone flight of Canada geese; and blew back the low, inaudible rollers in upright, steely mist.

Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.

Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?

If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I'm sure it's a good one—and the same goes for paintings.