When addressed, a Gentleman Cat does not move a muscle. He looks as if he hasn't heard.

Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn.

The tragic thing about learning from experience is I fear that one can only learn from one's own experience. Other people's - other nations' - experiences simply do not help. They can be imaginatively learned from. But people do not act on other people's experiences.

At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.

poetry is first of all a way of life and only secondarily a way of writing.

When we admit our vulnerability, we include others. If we deny it, we shut them out.

For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting and tormented self...I am unable to become what I see. I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful halt, "won't go".