The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the creative is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death.

He [the cat] wound himself around her legs, purring the purr of ardent desire like a kettle coming to a boil and then bubbling very fast.

Once more I realize that solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people (all naturally solitary people must feel this) precludes awareness of one's self, so after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.

One could go on revising a prose page forever whereas there is a point in a poem when one knows it is done forever.

A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.

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

I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward