We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love—a connection between things.

Yes, the mistrust of poetry has a long history, for a variety of reasons, but they all come down to sentiment and invention over fact and truth. Figurative language is suspicious.

I remember I was a child, and when I grew up I was a poet. It all happened at sixty miles an hour and on days when the clock stopped and all of humanity fit into a little chapel, into a pinecone, a shot of ouzo, a snail's shell, a piece of soggy rye on the pavement.

Metaphor is not, and never has been, a mere literary term. It is an event.

the wasting of time is the most personal, most private, most intimate form of conversation with oneself, as well as with another.

There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. Writers know that. I have never met a writer who does not crave to be alone. We have to be alone to do what we do.

I like to read because it kills me.