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.

The powerful don't make revolutions

My idea of Hell is to be young again.

History is a game played backwards only.

Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

Sometimes when a character in a novel is difficult for me to enter, I sue something in myself or in my own life as a doorway into that character's mind and emotions.

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