If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.

We only store in memory images of value. To write about one's life is to live it twice, and the second time is both spiritual and historical.

poetry is the sung voice of accurate perception.

It's always a thrilling risk to say exactly what you mean, to express exactly what you see.

Planes are my foxhole. I'm always on my knees in them.

People come and go in life, but they never leave your dreams. Once they're in your subconscious, they are immortal.

You can’t put much on paper before you betray your secret self, try as you will to keep things civil.