We come away from the tragedies of [William] Shakespeare with a profound sense of having encountered reality in its most pristine form - yet the art-work is elaborately artificial, the very genre of tragedy in poetry an anti-naturalist perspective.

I believe that the creative impulse is natural in all human beings, and that it is particularly powerful in children unless it is suppressed. Consequently, one is behaving normally and instinctively and healthily when one is creating - literature, art, music, or whatever. An excellent cook is also creative! I am disturbed that a natural human inclination [creative work] should, by some Freudian turn of phrase, be considered compulsive - perhaps even pathological. To me this is a complete misreading of the human enterprise. One should also enjoy one's work, and look forward to it daily.

the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.

Boxing is an American sport - a 'so-called sport' to many - in which images of incalculable beauty and violence, desperation and ingenuity, are routinely entwined; the sport that evokes the most extreme reactions - loathing, revulsion, righteous indigation; a fierce and often inexplicable loyalty.

If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?

Except that awards are competitive, which is a negative thing, they are wonderful for singling out deserving individuals and bringing their work to the attention of many potential readers who might otherwise have been totally unaware of them.

For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.