When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbl

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.

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.

Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

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

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

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.