One could say that artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways.

There are not many poets whose fame rests on a single work.

I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.

If you like the precision and concision of poetry, a page of prose is unsatisfying in a certain way. And poetry is so direct.

The non-artists among us are always terribly busy, but finally disappear without a trace.

For the mind and the imagination, bookstores aren't enough, college courses aren't enough, the Internet isn't enough. Those resources are all governed by the tastes and needs of the moment. Only libraries take the long view, quietly shelving the unused with the used, knowing that one of these days the two categories will be reversed by a student's discovery of those hitherto undisturbed volumes whose contents will unsettle the learned world.

The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play.