There's a crystallization that goes on in a poem which the young man can bring off, but which the middle-aged man can't.

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.

You cannot help but learn more as take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is and old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.

I know how to choke. Given even a splinter-thin opportunity to let my side down and destroy my own score, I will seize it. Not only does ice water not run through my veins, but what runs there has a boiling point lower than body temperature.

Our tears fatten upon our memories of joy.

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia.