I like the sound a typewriter makes.

Chance is an element of life. What I try to do is study what I call the mechanics of reality as carefully as I can.

All men contain several men inside them, and most of us bounce from one self to another without ever knowing who we are.

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

Cities - I'm attracted to them, and I have a special attachment to New York...it's my place.

I started out in life as a poet, I was only writing poetry all through my 20s, it wasn't until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels, I liked them.

[Charles] Reznikoff was in between faiths, in between worlds... a double, hyphenated American. I think it probably goes deeper than that.