To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

The war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on.

There's something immediate about the experience of reading a poem. It makes sense in my own mind, but I'm trying to figure out a way to articulate it... It's like looking at a painting: you're able to take in the totality of the work all at once, and so processing whatever information that painting is giving you is almost secondary to simply apprehending what's in front of you.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

I can't envision an honest war novel that left war in a positive light.

It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow.