Photographs are the most curious indicators of reality.

Solitude is un-American.

Memory is the most transient of all possessions. And when it goes, it leaves as few traces as stars that have disappeared.

There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness - her selfishness, in short - is a reproach to the American way of life.

I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, making a spectacle of myself. I was. But nothing helped. I was possessed. The minute he walked into a room and smiled at me, I was a goner.

It's easier to write about pain than about joy. Joy is wordless.

I started with poetry because it was direct, immediate, and short. It was the ecstasy of striking matches in the dark.