Want of passion is, I think, a very striking characteristic of Americans, not unrelated to their predilection for violence. For very few people truly have a passionate desire to achieve, and violence serves as a kind of substitute.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself

There are books which one should not attempt before having passed the age of forty.

Leaving behind books is even more beautiful — there are far too many children.

One nourishes one's created characters with one's own substance: it's rather like the process of gestation. To give the character life, or to give him back life, it is of course necessary to fortify him by contributing something of one's own humanity, but it doesn't follow from that that the character is I, the writer, or that I am the character. The two entities remain distinct.

For me, a poet is someone who is 'in contact.' Someone through whom a current is passing.

I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.