If she were religious, she would call it the soul. It is more than the sum of her intellect and her emotions, more than the sum of her experiences, though it runs like veins of brilliant metal through all three. It is an inner faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it is made of the same substance

Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest.

A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if hes any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and, yes, read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down, but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular?

Accept that, like many men, you have a streak of the homoerotic in you. Why would you, why would anyone, want to be that straight?