I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.

It's extraordinary how little two people can understand each other and how cruel two people who are fond of each other can be to each other - there is practically no cruelty so awful because their power to hurt is so great.

For me the moral dilemma this past year has been how to make peace with the unacceptable.

The ambience here is order and beauty. That is what frightens me when I am first alone again. I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it?

We only keep what we lose.

Love cannot exorcise the gifts of hate. / Hate cannot exorcize what has no weight, / But laughter we can never over-rate.

Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels.