I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.

I often start writing in order to excite an expansive emotion.

If bitterness wants to get into the act, I offer it a cookie or a gumdrop.

Adversity is a stimulus.

It was as important to live poetically as to write poems.

And to Shakespeare I owe my vision of the world as a theater, wherein all humans are acting out their parts.

Life's major challenge: getting reborn often enough.