I always felt, if I can get to a library, I'll be OK.

Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity.

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her 50 years ago and still do.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That's what Norman Mailer did. That's what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that's what I do - that's what I mean to do.

Soft you day, be velvet soft, My true love approaches, Look you bright, you dusty sun, Array your golden coaches. Soft you wind, be soft as silk My true love is speaking. Hold you birds, your silver throats, His golden voice I'm seeking. Come you death, in haste, do come My shroud of black be weaving, Quiet my heart, be deathly quiet, My true love is leaving.