All art, in spite of the struggles of some critics to prove otherwise, is based on emotion and projects emotion.

I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.

I have lost faith in universal panaceas - work is the one thing in which I really believe.

No more pronouncements on lousy verse. No more hidden competition. No more struggling not to be a square.

It is through the acceptance of a variety of aethetic and intellectual points of view that a culture is given breadth and density.

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?

The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision.