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.

For any writer who wants to keep a journal, be alive to everything, not just to what you're feeling, but also to your pets, to flowers, to what you're reading.

The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.

Revision is not going back and fussing around, but going forward into the process of creation

I feel often very close to the ecstasy and anguish which lie at the very heart of poetry - I am writing a lot.

In the novel or the journal you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival.

True feeling justifies whatever it may cost.