Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.

Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.

The existence of pleasure is the first mystery. The existence of pain has prompted far more philosophical speculation. Pleasure and pain need to be considered together; they are inseparable. Yet the space filled by each is perhaps different. Pleasure, defined as a sense of gratification, is essential for nature

All publicity works upon anxiety.

It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.

Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.