We are herding the young in that direction so that they are not sitting still and contemplating, Goddamn it, a page of exquisite prose by Charles Dickens, which is filled with rage about poverty and the need of a household to survive. That's not in the table for consideration now. And people don't understand that beautiful rage of Dickens because they don't share it. They haven't got time to worry about an oppressed culture, a subclass.

Baseball is a game where you are always waiting, and then when something happens it's like turning a kaleidoscope when you were a kid.

I have found myself writing poetry shortly after I retired. Which I hadn't done in forty years.

The people who make reality are angry peasants with old cannon shells wired together, an anti-vehicle device.

I don't think I want to write a third book. But the more people talk to me about it, the more I think maybe I do.

Never use 'submit' as a verb for sending work to magazine or book publishers; say 'offer,' and never, ever submit. Keep your knees unbent. Be brave.

The education of young people is narrowing. They cannot have the scope they used to have. They are being taught in high school by people earnest, still, but maybe less well-prepared than we would want them to be - but not because they are stupid or churlish.