I had this fantasy of becoming a neurosurgeon. You know, the normal Jewish boy fantasy, but I wanted to be a neurosurgeon for some reason. So I started in this unpleasant way. I was an assistant to the coroner, opening up corpses, taking the innards out, opening skulls, taking the brains out.

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

In poetic thought, the role of the subconscious is played by euphony.

I didn't want to be either the cre`me de la cre`me or a martyr. I'd rather be a novelty, especially in a democracy that doesn't understand the language I write in.

I was quite happy in Arkhangelsk.Subsequently, I was sent to a village. I liked it in its own way because it sounded to me very much like the tradition of a hired man in any world-class poem. That's what I was, a hired man. I was working for a collective farm.

If they had wanted to punish me, they should have kept me in a communal apartment. Then I would have become a wreck.

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?