I like old men. They can be wonderful bastards because they have nothing to lose. The only people who can be themselves are babies and old bastards.

The literary scene is a kind of Medusa’s raft, small and sinking, and one’s instinct when a newcomer tries to clamber aboard is to step on his fingers.

Love makes the air light.

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.

We are cruel enough without meaning to be.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.