I think we validate our lives through our actions.

Too much self-regard has never struck me as dignified: trying to twist over my shoulder to view my own behind.

I don't think writers change the past any more than other people do, except in so far as we may mine our lives and change things for fictional use.

We may be losing the ability to understand animals who are not pets or horses. We have less contact with them. We don't (most of us) tend to know even cows and pigs, let alone bears or wolverines or red tailed hawks.

If what we change does not change us we are playing with blocks.

The mind wraps itself around a poem. It is almost sensual, particularly if you work on a computer. You can turn the poem round and about and upside down, dancing with it a kind of bolero of two snakes twisting and coiling, until the poem has found its right and proper shape.

Shall I tell you something I've been noticing? The mistrust this society has for women. All kinds of experts and officials are terrified because so many women are working. They really think that women have to be coerced into having babies and raising kids.