I think most people dont like others who, without a voice of their own, emulate the other. I certainly dont want anybody just to pick up my thoughts and hand them back to me.

I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopias, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered.

When the dream came into being, I always pursued it.

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent.

At the age of 18 all young poets are sure they will be dead at 21 - of old age.

we live our fate before we realize exactly what it is.

I try to teach my students style, but always as a part of life, not as ornament. Style has to come out of communicating coherent thought, not in sticking little flowers on speeches. Style and substance and a sense of life are the things literature is composed of. One must use one's own personality in relationship to life and language, of course, and everyone has such a relationship. Some people find it, some don't find it, but it's there.