As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.

The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.

I don't want to dive into that mud slide, which is what I consider the literary process.

I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.

Bad literature is a form of treason.

The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.

My poems getting published in Russia doesn't make me feel in any fashion, to tell you the truth. I'm not trying to be coy, but it doesn't tickle my ego.