after all the work of the philosophers on his soul and the doctors on his body, what can we really say we know about a man? That he is, when all is said and done, just a passage for liquids and solids, a pipe of flesh.

Frost in January minus 20 for a week. Dead birds frozen on the branch—they fall with the first thaw like ripe fruit—death-ripened. We shall all end like them—just a stain in the snow.

Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.

To write a poem is like trying to catch a lizard without its tail falling off.

We should tackle reality in a slightly jokey way, otherwise we miss its point.

They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures - and the best of them lead us not only outward in space, but inward as well.

The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.