Troubles cured you salty as a country ham, smoky to the taste, thick-skinned and tender inside.

I am a driven writer. I feel guilty if I don't write, not self-indulgent if I do.

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

One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.

Grandmother Hannah comes to me at Pesach and when I am lighting the sabbath candles. The sweet wine in the cup has her breath.... a little winter no spring can melt.

My strength and my weakness are twins in the same womb.

I'm probably the only novelist who has ever written about political fugitives who actually knew a lot about them, had contact with them, and had a realistic notion of how they survived.