Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.

Very few writers of distinction in fact were outstanding as undergraduates.

Not to be alone. To be spared the possibility of knowing oneself, in aloneness.

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

I don't think that any 'ism' is higher than literature or art. So I'm a formalist. I greatly honor and respect the form of a work.

Early publication can be a dubious blessing: we all know writers who would give anything not to have published their first book, and go about trying to buy up all existing copies.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.