Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

Turning fifty ... is like flying: hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

Solitude is considered un-American.

Poetry is the inner life of a culture, its nervous system, its deepest way of imagining the world. A culture that ignores its poets, chokes off its nervous system and becomes mortally ill.

Genius is a strong aphrodisiac.

As a seasoned insomniac, I knew sometimes the way to beat sleeplessness was to outwit it: to pretend you didn't care about sleeping. Then sometimes sleep became piqued, like a rejected lover, and crept up to try to seduce you.

I think we’re [men and women] more similar. In that we all deal with our fantasy lives and sometimes are disappointed by reality.