Since man, fragment of the universe, is governed by the same laws that preside over the heavens, it is by no means absurd to search there above for the themes of our lives, for those frigid sympathies that participate in our achievements as well as our blunderings.

I could say that all my books were conceived by the time I was twenty, although they were not to be written for another thirty or forty years. But perhaps this is true of most writers—the emotional storage is done very early on.

Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.

Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.

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

I don't think I ever relinquish a person I have known, and surely not my fictional characters. I see them, I hear them, with a clarity that I would call hallucinatory if hallucination didn't mean something else ... A character whom we create can never die, any more than a friend can die ... Through [my characters] I've lived many parallel lives.

The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.