I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.

Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

Art is not in some far-off place.

There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.

Work hard and meticulously. When in trouble, look closely at a text that is a good example of what you're trying to do. And be patient.

In some sense the text and the translator are locked in struggle - 'I attacked that sentence, it resisted me, I attacked another, it eluded me' - a struggle in which, curiously, when the translator wins, the text wins too.

I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her; the reader may then find the poem difficult.