I agreed a long time ago, I would not live at any cost. If I am moved or forced away from what I think is the right thing, I will not do it.

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity.

On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there's no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.

In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.

Poetry helps my soul escape its encasement.

I love a Hebrew National hot dog with an ice-cold Corona - no lime. If the phone rings, I won't answer until I'm done.