I always considered myself a minor writer. My province is small, and I try to explore it very, very thoroughly.

Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care

Take one step to the side and it's all absurd.

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free!!

As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand. Shakespeare I couldn't understand, but Yeats I could. It was his subject matter and also I really admired the way he put his personal life on the line.

Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.

I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.