I'm as much influenced by Joseph Smith and the Mormons as I am, more so, than by Eliot. Actually, I'm much more influenced by the poetry of the Mormons.

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.

If there is no certain reality, the idea of following a leader must be scrutinized.

A lawyer I once knew told me of a strange case, a suffragette who had never married. After her death, he opened her trunk and discovered 50 wedding gowns.

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.

I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.