It's a question of not copying the masters, to look for something, good or bad, for oneself. To enter this liberated state of mind, one cannot copy the others.

I don't for a minute think that Hitler is like Joan of Arc. But I think that at that deep level of tropisms, Hitler or Stalin must have experienced the same tropisms as anyone else.

Women have seen that they have locked themselves up with feminist writing.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.

I have never sought the reason why I write.

The reader has to be creative when he's reading. He has to try to make the thing alive. A good reader has to do a certain amount of work when he is reading.